Joji - Piss In The Wind

Joji’s comeback album feels more like a vague collection of ideas than a cohesive record.

A hiatus lasting over three years gives an artist plenty of time to work on new material, give thought to their musical identity, and present their best work. It also raises expectations significantly, with built up impatience among an audience adding pressure to perform. This can lead an artist to overthink and produce something more confusing than defining. This feels like the case with Joji’s fourth album, Piss In The Wind, released on February 6th via Palace Creek/Virgin Music.

The album consists of 21 tracks, but is just under 46 minutes long — less than half of the tracklist even reaches the 2-minute mark. This quickly becomes the most frustrating thing about the project — many songs kick into gear, and sound appealing, and then, just like that, are abruptly over. The biggest instances of this are “If It Only Gets Better” and the 4batz-assisted “Fade to Black”, which are just a minute and eight seconds and a minute and fifteen seconds long respectively, but there are various other examples throughout the record. Other short tracks feel more like raw demos or ideas than finished tracks, coming off more as padding for the album than true, intentional contributions. The bloated tracklist combined with the lo-fi sound of many tracks make the album start to blend together; this is especially noticeable in the second half, with only one major high beyond the third single, “Past Won’t Leave My Bed”, which is the eleventh song on the album.

On the other end of the spectrum, the peak of Joji’s abilities can also be heard on “Piss In The Wind” — there are several gems on the record, with beautifully resonant, haunting production and vocals, captivating the listener with the incredible atmosphere and evocative lyrical imagery that made past tracks like “Run” or “Glimpse of Us” as successful as they were. Tracks like the aforementioned “Past Won’t Leave My Bed”, “DYKILY” or “Piece of You”, which also features a great contribution by R&B artist Giveon, all bring that trademark nostalgic melancholy associated with Joji’s music, making it impossible not to wonder if the entire project could’ve been at that level with a little more time and effort put into it; or, alternatively, perhaps, if it had been cut down to an EP of around 7 or 8 tracks. Additionally, a lot of the more interesting things Joji goes for on the album — the more unorthodox, trippy rhythms and glitchy electronic elements — are excellent, and show a lot of potential; they could make for excellent artistic evolution if explored further. But, in the end, it all leaves the listener wanting more than the album can deliver.

Overall, nothing about Piss In The Wind fully makes sense. The bizarre title, the strange body double promotion tour, the lengthy tracklist, the short song lengths, the five singles, the lack of any real coherent structure, the fairly random features — it all feels like a single raw brainstorming session turned into an album without much refinement. There are some great songs and musical ideas on this album — they just become rather challenging to find at times. What emerges in the end, instead, is a monotone, fairly mediocre project that doesn’t make Joji’s direction as an artist following his departure from 88rising very clear.

5.4/10