The vibes of Frank Joshua’s left-field music are infectious, dark, and brooding on ‘Seedy Grammar’, his latest single, fluently blending melancholy and horror in a whimsical vessel that’s impossibly immersive.
London-based Frank Joshua is an incredibly fruitful indie, alt, and art pop musician who has put out more (good) music in the past three years than some other artists put together in their whole careers. A creative juggernaut, Frank Joshua’s music on ‘Seedy Grammar’ is delightfully nuanced, whether we’re discussing the enchanting musical atmosphere or the looming darkness of the accompanying clip, it is clear that Frank Joshua’s high-volume output does not equal compromise on the quality of that output.
‘Seedy Grammar’ is weedy and dark. Joshua’s voice is brooding and the syncopated groove is addictive, and so are the song’s prominent chord sequences, the only trace of Joshua’s artistic core as a singer and songwriter. The arrangement, rich with syrupy, venomous, and thick synth pads, jazzy and wooden guitars, and caramel-thick Fender Rhodes leads, supported by an invaluable but sparse sub bass part that glues together the song’s dense low-end, which sounds paradoxically light and cloudy -rainstorm clouds that is.
The video, recalling the fall of the Berlin wall and the final days of the Soviet Union is extremely dark and charming, enigmatic and cool. ‘Seedy Grammar’ is a song about the deeply sociological phenomenon of the erosion of adherence to grammatical standards and its relation to ideological and political declines, and in so many ways, the music, the mix, the video, and everything in between, seem to point out exactly that. I don’t know how Frank Joshua pulled that off, but I’m really glad he did.