Joel Sarakula sings cold, observational lyrics such as “In empty silver towers we kill the daylight hours in the lonely town. No-one really says much, just the constant chatter of machine code sound”, and even manages to sneakily reference Phillip K. Dick with “it’s time to turn the screen off but are sheep still what I dream of when my body lays?” But it’s not all doom and gloom to a disco beat as he ultimately offers the listener the salvation of the impassioned chorus line “Tonight I’ll take my chance to hide away before they digitise my life away from me’. And while he gently introduces sequenced synth patterns, synthesized drum sounds and colder textures, “Lonely Town” still sits comfortably in Joel Sarakula’s warm, soulful sonic world.
Originally from Sydney, Australia and having spent the last 10 years in London Joel Sarakula now calls the Canary Islands home. ‘I’ve spent my life moving to smaller and smaller islands’ he jokes. Sarakula has been developing and indulging his soulful, soft-rock and disco-influenced vision over his previous albums “Love Club” and “Companionship” but his arrival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in late 2020 has brought him full circle. While his music has previously had a sun-drenched, summery and occasionally tropical feel he now literally lives in the sunny tropics.
A fixture on the club and festival scene having played the likes of SXSW, Primavera Sound, Reeperbahn Festival and a host of Jazz & Soul festivals, Sarakula has been championed on national radio throughout the UK and Europe with his singles regularly being added to station playlists.
More about Joel Sarakula on West Coast Soul:
Companionship – Interview with Joel Sarakula (2020)
Love Club – Interview with Joel Sarakula (2018)
