Jolé Returns with a new single “All My Friends”
December 15, 2023 BY Emma Orland
After releasing his latest EP Let Go back in May this year, UK-based singer-songwriter and musician Jolé returns today with a brand new single titled ‘All My Friends’. Beautifully composed and lyrically astute, it’s a poignant track about going back to your roots, leaving your past life whilst having feelings of trepidation about the process.
“All My Friends was written after I moved out of London. Although I made the decision to leave I was still getting fear of missing out and with the power of social media, I felt like everyone was having fun without me,” Jolé explained. “With a lot of life changes going on personally I felt like I was moving away from my old life and changing as a person. This song is about moving through those changes.”
Listen/Share – All My Friends:
https://jole.ffm.to/allmyfriends
About Jolé:
Raised in Frome, Somerset, Jolé (real name Josh Oliver) was instinctively drawn to music from a young age, an urge to collaborate led him to join a band, finding nationwide success before touring took them across Europe, and beyond. Once he’d been given his first taste, however, it was impossible to give up. “I’ve always loved writing music,” he reflects. “And as I got deeper and deeper into it, it became all I knew… and all I ever wanted to know.”
Eventually, the band splintered, and the songwriter found himself on the south coast. “I came out of it all just wanting to make my own music,” he asserts. “I wanted full creative control over everything, so I just started writing and recording my own material. One thing led to another, and that led to my debut album. Nothing was planned, it was just a natural progression.”
His 2019 self-titled debut achieved extraordinary success, its succinct simplicity conjuring visions of Bon Iver or Sufjan Stevens, while adding something unique, and definitely English. Recorded during downtime at Eastbourne’s Echo Zoo studio with a friend at the controls, the experience became invaluable; it made his name, for one, and it allowed him to learn the art of the studio by watching other people.
His daring new EP Let Go, released earlier this year on Nettwerk, was his first major project in almost three years, it’s a wonderful song cycle, featuring seven glorious tracks of folk-hewn songwriting such as the title track and ‘This City’. Baroque yet utterly direct, the material deals with loss, grief, and survival, as Jolé learned to re-assert his sense of self in the wake of fatherhood.
