We Speak Music

Joshua Thew to launch new album with headline London show at The Lower Third on 23rd Sept!

Published

2 years ago

September 3, 2024

Don Reed

Get tickets now here: https://link.dice.fm/T50719622101

Joshua Thew is a London-based artist and songwriter. Born and raised in Hertfordshire, UK, Josh danced for the New York City Ballet for a decade, leaving his dance career after a serious back injury in 2016 to pursue music full-time. Thew began by singing jazz covers, while simultaneously developing his powerful, versatile original voice. Josh draws upon influences like Joni Mitchell, Donny Hathaway, and George Michael to create a singularly soulful sound: rich, vulnerable, and melancholic.

Through his music, Thew explores heartbreak and new love through sensual, atmospheric grooves and contemplative lyrics. His recent releases have received attention from the BBC, Wonderland Magazine, Metal Magazine, and editorial Spotify playlists. Thew also recently performed at BBC Introducing and at the prestigious London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s in summer 2023.

Since 2018, Joshua has partnered with producer Cale Hawkins (Raveena, Arthur Moon, Charli XCX, Amber Mark). The pair began their collaboration with the debut EP Quiet Words, which jump-started Josh’s following and received media attention from outlets like BBC Introducing and Flaunt Magazine.

Joshua is now ready to release his new EP ‘Endlessly’, out 15^th August, with a special London launch show. Cale Hawkins and witS & Smitty will be joining Joshua for the show all the way from New York, collaborating with him for his headline set and performing their own support sets. For lovers of deep introspective moods and vibrant alt-pop music respectively, the night promises to be a feast for the senses.

For a taster of the new EP and what to expect at The Lower Third, Thew’s sublime new single ‘Reveal’ is available now for streaming and download via all good outlets.

On the track, Thew explains, “Reveal feels like the calm after the storm. Almost that idea of reaching the top of a steep hill and having a moment to look down and appreciate the distance. It’s the piano ballad that sort of encapsulates the central theme of the EP. Working as an intimate conversation to the person and subject the song is about. I’m sort of saying ‘I see you facing your shit and your demons as I’m trying to do the same and I appreciate you’ The song is about being ready to choose vulnerability for someone. Giving up the defense, pulling down the walls and understanding the only way to deeper intimacy is vulnerability.”

We Speak Music

Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

Published

24 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Don Reed

Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”

About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5^th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.