How To Be Hopeful

There are not a lot of Drowned in Sound traditions but publishing their album commentary whenever johnny foreigner release a new record is one of them.

If you're not familiar with their noise-pop that sways from a big Los Campesinos grin to the distorted joys of Weezer and Ash, then it's time to welcome this band from Birmingham into your scruffy heart. On the new record, their trademark sound at times veers away from the indie-pop cranked to eleven into a bit of luscious Thrill Jockey/Dismemberment Plan noodling.

To say they've become DiS favourites over the years would be underselling the love for them on our forums.

After 8 years away, these grassroots heroes are back, so it's track by track o'clock and all that's left to say is take it away Alexei...

How To Be Hopeful, by Johnny Foreigner

12 track album

Johnny Foreignerfinnleyfae

0) and we start with me being dumped and consoled by my friend Roisin. Only really, we start about a year earlier with a song called (sorry working title only); November Rain 2. The first song we made in 5 years, slated as our 2021 comeback single and ditched on recording cos it felt like a small step to something, not a worthy return itself. Partially cos the lyrics were these weird half fictional metaphors, putting words in friends’ mouths, unsatisfying. Over the next 6 months tho, line by line, those words became actually true. From the nostradamian (my company didn't literally -burn- down) to the explicit (I actually did meet someone with a ghost tattoo and unexpectedly move into a Brighton sea view.)  We've talked a lot about how this record is powered by Chaos Magick and this is the cursed dead tree that predates everything else. Whilst you'll never hear it, it's branches are the roots of most of the record. Which is fancy talk for we recycled some parts into an entire album. Truth be told, "album" was a formal last-minute decision when we stepped back and heard it, but in my head this is a twin EP, two sets of six tracks that tell the same story with differing amounts of infused magic.

1) Roisin Does Advice Now
The world of this record as a whole is an inversed bell curve, it gets worse then better; but for me personally it's a straight chronological burn upwards, so we start at the bottom in the months post lockdown where I am dumped and depressed and Roisin, who has triumphed way more trauma than I, is coaching me out of it and telling me to trust the universe. I am refusing and being a whiny cynical baby; writing a song about it instead of actually doing it. But, as mentioned, this is a magical record and it turns out i really do worry too much.

2) The Blazing World.
Title stolen from a 17^th century sci-fi classic but fine with any metaphorical reading, stoner or otherwise.  This was the second pair of songs we made, that convinced us to ditch the first. No idea this was going to sprawl into a record yet but and already the themes are creepin' in. One more drink (or pop record) you shouldn't have but are clearly gonna anyway (real punx don't get to chose) because we're all going to die anyway, what's my age again (pop punk gets old) The factories metaphor comes directly from our new studio, The Setbacks; gentrification forced us out of Digbeth onto a strip that used to be the gateway to the city, all factory showrooms built in increasingly ostentatious styles till the industry collapsed. 

3) WTA
The big reveal that this is actually our Content and In Love album; A terrible choice for a comeback single, 5 mins of mostly talking, but the history of our band is doing the thing that seems right even if the adults in the room have their heads in their hands. Let it be known that this was a working title that I was outvoted on using, but Ice of Brighton was prolly too on the nose.

4) Museum of Useless Things
Songs tend to come in pairs and this is twinned with Blazing World, uses a few of the same musical bones, so it made sense having them bookend the Big Statement. A song about acceptance that continues the trad. JF themes of Buran references and cccp metaphors; also a nice accidental synergy with tying soviet relicing to a song that sounded like ITYIWEY before I joined and ruined them by introducing distortion pedals for every chorus. Because we are obsessed with symmetry, the sample at the end is the starting sample from Their Shining Path only reversed.

5) Orc Damage
Title is a Tolkien quote talking about the damage done by industry to Birmingham, song is the destruction of the company I worked for, as previously predicted. A not uncommon path from fun indie job to corporate takeover to doom, but unusually bitter and protracted; friends pitted against each other, whole decades of entrenched networks being picked apart.

6) Ok 1 more!
Aka, the bad ending, and pencilled in as The Big Closing Song before the magic fully kicked in and we fully realised what we were doing. Lauren as a character in decade old JF songs, my dramatically unrequited crush, has gotten p divorced from Lauren the actual person, a regular human whose fiancé is prolly mildly amused that there's this dead indie band with a potentially weird amount of songs involving her. Made up that she's also found someone, mildy annoyed it happened too late to incorporate into this lil model universe. Obvious nostalgiabait reference to Eyes Wide Terrified, and the buried vocal at the end is actually the first verse from Emily and Alex, like a portentous dream of a better world peeking thru the clutter of the real life. 

7) This is a Joke
And reset, side two. The nadir of that bell curve, set firmly in that awful real world, no magic. I'm a mostly straight mostly secure white guy, my opinion of trans folk is informed by fear mongering bitter baity ex celebrities, and I'm taught that "immigration is ruining my country" by some men who took us out of the EU, who actually did ruin the country, and promptly migrated there. Everything is dumb, everything is a (bad) joke. The problem with writing overtly political songs is the risk that they might be spectacularly outdated come release day. So I guess I've found an actual Brexit Benefit. Picard.jpg. This also includes another subtle preview of Emily and Alex; the tiny and way less distorted pitchy drone under the intro guitars.

8) Dark Tetris.
The dark art of fitting it all in, this song twins with Ok 1 More, (that's the bluff being called) but was also written with the idea it had to match up with Blazing World somewhere; they both have the clean matchy guitar breaks, beatskipping bridges and are mildly surprised their occupants are still alive and well.  It ended up sharing accidental ground with Orc Damage (my shit) and A Sea To Scream at (my partner's shit) just because the world is a fuck, all service industries are being shorted by corporate, and everyone is simultaneously overworked and underpaid. When yr at the bottom of the bell curve, might as well throw some stones and commit to chaos.

9) their shining path.
The fuzzy keyboard sample was inspired by (and frankly, used cos we couldn't manipulate the real thing to fit properly) from the sample of Texas Never Whispers by Pavement that Placebo use in Slave To The Wage. The (degrading) signs (actual) are from my old workplace that collapsed in Orc Damage, the (upgraded) signs (metaphorical) are from the First Man; Adam, a person i met 3am in a hotel smoking area with a dark but ominously vague backstory, currently living his redemption arc, one unnecessary act of kindness a day. I go into this in more rambly detail on the voicemail sample that closes All of The Colours but basically he read then blew my mind and I'm not quite sure he was human. Was already under the spell and aware how much I stepping into the bleed to make this record and, this would be about a week after I wrote the bridge lyrics in Dark Tetris, this conversation just absolutely sent for me. 

Johnny Foreigner have shared their new single ‘Their Shining Path’, which may or may not have been inspired by a ghost

The band’s first album in eight years is on the way.

DorkSam Taylor

10) A Sea To Scream at
One last cathartic tidal trough. It's not my story to tell in any more detail than I do in the song but B-town could be either of them, any city, any poverty wage service industy, any powertrippy man who knows he can probably get away with it. If this song twins with any, it should be Another Song About The Sea by Grunt Work.

11) Emily and Alex. 
And here we are; the first love song I know I will never regret writing. They find seaglass, like, all the time; it's the most amazing thing. We'll be walking on the beach, a floor of millions of tiny grey stones stretching out under the water, and they'll just dash forward and pick out this tiny smooth pebble of pure colour. I'll kill this vibe rn by also mentioning that Kel's verse harmonies are accidentally the alien's motif from Close Encounters and thus we have symmetrical obscure sci-fi references. The resolving guitar chord that closes Roisin Does Advice now is also sampled all over this too, unnecessary symbolism but it fit really well. The title, somewhat shamelessly at this point, is another Dplan inversion; "Ellen and Ben" being an upbeat song about a breakup. 

12) We Build This City
Aside from subverting our opening lines of miserablia and giving Roisin a better ending, there's an existential worry I have that this isn't our finest closing song. It's not even the finest closer on this record, but I refer you once again to us being guided by righteous instinct not actual judgement; This is the final evolution of The Cursed Song, the same basic bones but with the words and melodies i couldn't quite reach when we started it 2 years ago. There's a guitar part that sounds very much like the guitar part in a very famous indie rock song, and since the meta has been eating its own tail for the whole album we asked said guitarist for permission; to incorporate a bit of his old song into our song about finding new songs. He is no longer in the band, nor in charge of Not Suing For Plagiarism so could only spiritually approve; but that's the only one we wanted. And honestly if they do take action they'll prolly have to get in line behind Starship and S Club 7.  A simple direct summary, a movie script ending. No cash in comeback, a perfect soundtrack.

How To Be Hopeful is out now on Alcopop.

Read the 7.8 review on Pitchfork, here.
Listen to an interview on the Setting the Tone podcast, here.
Join the Jofo appreciation thread on DiS, here.