The Radio Engineer
By Joshua Benjamin Johnson |
It turns out I don’t own a CD player anymore. My computer didn’t come with one. The DVD player doesn’t have a headphone jack. I’ve got a five-disk changer in the car with those same three Metallica CDs (the good albums) that have been stuck in there for years. I’ve tried to get them out, but I just end up listening to them again. Such is the story of the music we get stuck listening to by default. Change requires a bit more effort.
But streaming works in the car just fine so let me introduce Joshua Benjamin Johnson’s The Radio Engineer into the context that seems most appropriate, the car. There is something of a gallop to American road songs. It’s not a specific tempo that defines one but rather something in the cadence that evokes those windshield wipers keeping time. I’m not sure if Johnson intended The Radio Engineer to be a road album, and I’m not even sure if I’m even ready to call it one, but I will say that when the brushes slide across a sharp snare drum, it starts to sound like that's the kind of thing it could be. What I can say, regardless, is that it is an album suited to the road.
Beginning with the first track, “The Movies,” The Radio Engineer gently merges with the speed of traffic in a comfortable, measured way. The arrangement is somehow sparse and lush simultaneously. The sound of guitar and drum support each other like a hesitant conversation. Then Johnson moves in with his opening line, “I never loved you, I loved the girl that played your part.” Now we are ready to sit back and put some miles behind us.
And on we go with a seamless pedal steel, as expected, until we arrive at the unexpected gift of Meredith Wilder on backing vocals. So great is the vocal paring, I wonder what places further collaboration could go. Tape loops and stray sounds filter into what is an exceptional production. Turn up that bass. It won’t thump, but you will feel it where it counts.
There are nine songs listed on The Radio Engineer with two bonus tracks undeclared on the CD. It is an album with moments of memory, though not a lament. Consider it more like Johnson says on the song “Honor, MI” where he says mid-story, “Those smokey words still follow me around.” There is restraint in the lyrics. There are things left unsaid. Easy repetitions left repeated. An album to slide into the CD player, should you have one, and merge into summer 2022.
The Radio Engineer
Joshua Benjamin Johnson
https://joshuabenjaminjohnson.bandcamp.com/album/the-radio-engineer