Today, we debut The Just Joans’ excellent new single ‘The One I Loathe The Least’ taken from their forthcoming album The Private Memoirs and Confessions of the Just Joans, due out on the 10th of January via Fika Recordings.
Dipped in black humour and tenderness ‘The One I Loathe The Least’ is a bittersweet seesawing ode to friendship and finding someone who hates the same things that you do. A shared disinterest can be as powerful as a shared interest, and there is often something triumphant in these relationships when it feels as though it’s just you and them against the world.
The Just Joans return with The Private Memoirs and Confessions of the Just Joans, a deeply personal collection of songs that hazily recall the past and contemplate the futility of the future.
A titular twist on the classic gothic horror novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by compatriot James Hogg, the new album is the follow-up to 2017’s You Might Be Smiling Now…
At the forefront remain the mischievous lyrics and heartfelt vocals of siblings David and Katie Pope, aided and abetted by Chris Elkin on lead guitar, Fraser Ford on bass guitar and Jason Sweeney on drums. They’ve also recruited multi-instrumentalist Arion Xenos and guest appearance of Butcher Boy’s Alison Eales to arrange strings.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of the Just Joans is a veritable smorgasbord of misery, longing and unrequited love; stories of small town resentments, half-forgotten school friends, failing relationships and awkward workplace conversations. As David explains: “It’s a collection torn from the pages of the diary I haven’t kept over the past 25 years. There are songs about places and people I vaguely remember, feelings I think that I once may have felt and the onset of middle-aged ennui.”
