John Rossiter (Young Jesus) had quit music to study permaculture and to work in landscapes and gardens. His last album, Shepherd Head, was too much time spent on the computer. Working with soil and plants gave him some life back. He said, “You know, when gardening, the right decision to make for the landscape is usually the one that is already happening. It just takes time to read what that is.”

So, John left the orchard to meet Shahzad Ismaily (Feist, Lou Reed, Arooj Aftab) for lunch. They instantly bonded, talking about improvisation, rhythm, the heart. On a lark, Shahzad invited John to New York.

Songs started to form, songs about shame and grief, love and redemption. They came fast, a song a day for two weeks. It was different from past albums, which felt like years of hammering out lyrics and ideas. This one came in the wake of a long illness, where tunes came in a rush, as if they were physical, as if the body couldn’t heal without them. An almost involuntary outpouring, overrunning his usual self-consciousness.

Rossiter had to sit and transcribe without judgment: let the ideas grow on their own. Shahzad was in LA one day when John sat down at the piano and played them for him. They decided to record them at Shahzad’s Figure 8 Studios in Brooklyn – these songs would blossom into Young Jesus’ forthcoming album, The Fool.

Inner landscaping requires presence and bravery. It can get pretty dark and strange the deeper you walk into that jungle. And it’s from the absolute pits of that inner landscape that the truest music rises from.

At the end of the last session, Rossiter and Alex Lappin sat down and drew tarot cards. John drew The Fool.

“… invoking art rock and improvisation while sounding like nothing else” – Pitchfork

“A profound departure…dimensions removed from the post-hardcore influences of earlier albums, with Rossiter leaning into the newfound grandeur of his voice.” – FADER

“A patchwork of white noise, song fragments, and field recordings, the album comes together to make something transcendent, with Rossiter finding a sense of harmony amid the chaos.” – The AV Club

“It’s gorgeous how Young Jesus transforms a sense of being lost into an encouragement to wonder without question.” – FLOOD

“[Rossiter] has some of his best traditional songwriting yet on this album…There’s a lot to like and a lot to take in, and the album only gets better with more and more listens.” – BrooklynVegan

“Rossiter himself all but disappears into these songs, as if channeling something far larger than himself—than any one of us.” – Paste