ISLAND HOUSE RECORDINGS RELEASE DATE: June 12 2026
John Harrison’s music as jphono1 runs the range from psychedelic rock to elegant folk to improvised drone (with Ben Felton, in Tacoma Park) to beat-driven electronics. But seldom has he shown off the latter as fully and fitly as he does on his latest album, a satellite array of electronic moods and memory machines for every occasion—coming up or coming down, getting stoked or getting stoned, gazing out or gazing in.
John’s eclectic music is united less by genre than by a certain sensibility, one that’s gentle and wistful, melancholy yet hopeful, warmhearted and a little groovy, and all of these threads sparkle in the tapestry of Background for Astronauts. “F 100” is an earth rise seen from the moon, minuscule and monumental. “Cascade” is a curvy banger in slow motion, the synth and guitar lines like cold drops of mercury sliding down the implacable beat. “STJI” blends rippling keys, minimalist guitar and banjo, and boom-bap drums into a dew-splashed study in cheerful yearning. “July 4th” exposes nocturnal electro-pop to photosynthesis until it marvelously mutates. And that’s just the first half.
Combining touches of shoegaze, glitch, ambient, trip-hop, and cinematic scores—Air’s Virgin Suicides soundtrack is a big influence—Background for Astronauts floats at the threshold between spontaneity and composition where guitars, basses, and drum machines react with their MIDI counterparts. “I’m a rock and roll guy, so I just like playing instruments,” says John, who, on “M Roy,” pays anthemic tribute to the experimental guitarist Roy Montgomery. "I like using computer stuff and other tools that can provide ease and perfection, but I always want the element of human involvement to be heard and experienced"?
This element activates the album’s supple, glowing grids. It’s in the un-quantized flexibility of the timing, the character of the chord changes, and the honesty of the expression, which celebrates what people can do with machines rather than what machines do themselves. “Repetition, patience, and simplicity of layers,” John says, reflecting on the values of these eight songs. “Oftentimes, I don’t think there’s a focal point, and you could still add a dominant solo element on top. I decided not to do that. It started feeling forced when I tried to make them more than what they were becoming.”
The result is a record of transfixing vibes that, in their thoughtful absences, seek to leave plenty of room for the listener—no solos, no big climaxes, just subtle feelings painted in space. John, as it happens, is also an excellent and prolific painter whose work often features little astronauts bravely exploring fields of texture and color. Sometimes, before he puts in the figures, he stops to admire the grounds. “I connect with them,” he explains, “but inevitably I don’t feel confident enough to keep them that way. These songs are kind of like those painted backgrounds, and I got more confident in the album when I made that connection.”
The secret’s that there’s nothing missing—the astronaut is you.
—Brian Howe (Pitchfork, INDY Week)
