It's hard to believe that 6 years ago this month, Joelistics dropped his debut album Voyager, which he tells us was a "hip-hop record that was more influenced by rock and roll, experimental, and dance music than straight up boom bap 90s".
Voyager remains an incredibly introspective and electrifying record which shows off Joelistics' brilliance as a producer and song-writer - themes of travel, modern world paranoia and growing up are skilfully blended with his love of beat poetry, shoe-gazer electronica and folk.
Back when the album was released, standout tracks for Joelistics included 'Heart Remains' in which the "seeds" of the song came about while he was writing "little sketches of home" the morning after he had "taken acid with a friend in a house in the south of France". Also 'Days', which was actually lyrically written when he got back from his travels - he says he still likes the outro which references "random groupings of things" such as the line, "A big tub of lard knows how I feel / Jean Luc Picard knows how I feel. "
"I can hear how much I wanted to write a whole record that you could listen to beginning to end and it would be its own complete epic journey," Joelistics reflects on what it's like listening back to Voyager 6 years later. We couldn't agree more - a complete epic journey is what Voyager definitely offers up!
You can still grab your copy of Voyager on CD via our store!
From The Vault revisits and reminisces game-changing Elefant Traks releases with the artist behind it.
