Joshua Burnside‘s music draws from folk, tape collage, and lyrical intuition. Across a series of acclaimed albums, he’s stitched together fragments—banjo riffs, archive recordings, traffic noise—into songs that feel both rooted in tradition and radically experimental.
Teeth of Time (reviewed here) feels like a mid-career record: a precursor to middle age, to the wonders of parenthood, the mourning of what’s passed, and hopes for what’s to come. Its uncanny soundscapes—found sounds, lost demos—scratch beneath the surface. The grief is gentle but present; the edges have been kept in.
The album’s soundscape suggests a secret world into which he retreats every now and again. In a sense, he’s not so different from the likes of John Francis Flynn or Lankum, except that he’s always producing himself. And his sound is less self-consciously Irish folk—more urban, maybe. More internal. We spoke about folk, influence, and the world from which he writes.
I really liked the KLOF feature where you talked through the objects on your shelf. It felt very “folk” in a way—not just the melodeon or the Sea Potatoes, but the way objects seem to carry a whole world with them.
Yeah. The patterns, the rituals, the places, the memories. I like things because they have a story, they have significance for me personally. And also the sounds. I collect sounds the same way, I think. You find something, and it brings a whole world with it.
Was that instinct—collecting sounds—something that came naturally to you, or did it grow from somewhere?
I think it’s mostly from The Books. They were this duo from the States—guitar, cello, and a whole world of weird little samples. They made these archives of sound and then instead of starting with melodies or chords, they’d start with the recordings. The instruments were more like accompaniment.
I just love their music. They only made three or four albums, but it really stuck with me. I think once I started listening to them, that’s when I started bringing more stuff like that into my own writing—layering in bits of voice, textures, scraps of something I’d recorded or found.
When I play with sounds in this way, I don’t really sit down with a guitar and go “what’s the song?” Normally, I’ll just start with something that sounds cool—like a little loop, or a voice, or a rhythm—and I build from there. I spend forever tweaking one tiny sound. Other times I’ll throw something in and just leave it, even if it’s a bit strange. I love that unpredictability.
Do you find that approach freeing, or does it come with its own pressures?
It is freeing, but it’s also endless. There’s no obvious stopping point. When you write a ‘song-y’ song with a verse-chorus structure, there’s a kind of built-in closure. But when you’re building around textures and found material, you can keep adding forever. You convince yourself it’s not done yet.
And because it’s often quite subtle, it can be hard to know what’s actually working. That’s the maddening bit. Sometimes I’ll spend an hour working on something, I end up muting anyway.
But I like that it keeps me on my toes. It forces me to listen differently. You’re not chasing perfection. That’s a different instinct.
Are you more interested in tradition or innovation? Or do you avoid overthinking such things?
Honestly, I don’t really think about it. I wouldn’t call myself a folk artist—not in the strict sense. There are people who dedicate their whole lives to researching old songs, finding melodies that are disappearing and bringing them back into the tradition. That’s real folk, I think. That’s real dedication.
I draw on that for sure. I’m influenced by older music—probably more than most pop or electronic musicians. But I’m not trying to preserve anything or break anything either. I just try to write songs that feel honest to me.
If you listen widely and keep playing around, things find their way in. That’s how you land on your sound. But if you get caught up in trying to define what you are, or why you’re doing it—that’ll ruin it. You’ll overthink. And then it’s not fun anymore. I try and hold onto that childlike feeling, where you’re just messing around, not worrying about whether it’s good or clever or original. You’ve got to protect that feeling.
So even if you’re not setting out to include trad, do you think it still sneaks into the songs?
I love trad. I play it in pubs, I sing the old songs. It’s always going to be there. But I don’t try and shove it into every song.
A lot of what I’ve been writing lately is more Americana or indie folk—just songs, three chords, verse-chorus-bridge stuff. And I love that form. If it’s done well, it’s perfect. Some of my favourite songs are just built like that.
But it’s funny, because sometimes people hear something and they go, “Oh, that sounds very Irish.” And to me, that wasn’t even on my mind. It might just be a banjo or a certain rhythm. Then other songs—like ‘Nothing for Ye’—that’s me clearly leaning into trad, trying to write something that feels like an old folk song. I’ll probably do a full record of just ballads and old songs at some point. That might be a nice side project.
You’ve collaborated with and produced a few artists in recent years—Laura Quirke, Alana Henderson. Do you find that changes how you hear your own work?
Yeah, I do—when it’s with people I really connect with. I don’t go looking for work as a producer, like ‘hire me’ or anything. But if I really love someone’s music and they want to do something together, that’s exciting.
I’ve done some cool production for Dug [Lorkin O’Reilly and Jonny Pickett]; that was good craic. And I’ve been working with Áine Gordon, I think the common thread is that I just love what they do. It’s nice to step into someone else’s sound-world for a while. It gives you a different kind of focus.
When it comes to producing your own material, though, it must be harder to know when to stop.
Sometimes. You don’t have that other voice saying, ‘Maybe leave that out,’ or ‘That’s done now.’ I’ve worked with other producers before—Ephrata was a mix of stuff I did and things recorded by Phil D’Alton and others. But most of the time, I produce everything myself.
And yeah, you do end up second-guessing things. But I’ve kind of got used to that. If something’s not working, I just leave it alone for a bit. Come back a week later and see how it feels. And I send tracks to a few close friends whose taste I trust. Like, ‘Is this terrible or have I just been listening to it for too long?’ You have to build your own kind of editorial process. Like writers have editors. Musicians don’t always have that—unless they want it.
You played the Grand Social in Dublin just as COVID restrictions were creeping back in. What do you remember about that show?
There was this weird tension. The whole COVID thing messed with people’s heads—the wiping down the Tesco shopping. It’s hard to believe we did that – we’ve collectively blocked so much of it out. The masks, the distancing. And now it’s like it never happened. Or like we’re pretending it didn’t.
I had friends who were anti-vax. I didn’t agree with them, but I understood the fear. If you’ve never trusted the government, and suddenly they’re telling you to inject something into your body—yeah, you’re going to hesitate. And there was so much noise, so much information flying around. It was hard to know who to believe.
It was intense. People were so hyper-aware. Every cough, every movement—it was like the air was charged. Cases were rising again. There was this sense that we were just clinging on, trying to have one last night out before it all closed again.
I remember someone in the smoking area at that gig saying they hadn’t been vaccinated, and the people sitting around them just kind of went silent. You could feel the atmosphere shift.
Yeah—I mean, you know, that’s exactly it. Everyone was on edge. There was this constant stress. It was a mad time to be gigging, navigating the whole thing.
Everything felt different. Not just because of the rules, but because you were aware that it could all vanish again. That kind of pressure.
There are political threads running through some of your music—especially in relation to the North. But they’re not always overt.
Sometimes. But it’s not about statements. It’s more like—this is the world I’m living in. This is what I see. And in the North, you can’t avoid it. The politics is in the air. The murals, the flags, the conversations in the pub. Especially among lads—you get three Northern Irish fellas in a room and before long they’re slagging each other about flags or policies. It’s half banter, half very real. Sometimes it’s good craic, sometimes you’re just like, can we not.
There was one time at a backroom session in Belfast—I sang ‘The Foggy Dew’ to the tune of ‘The Sash’. It was wild. Mixing a rebel song with a loyalist march. Absolutely everyone in the room was offended. And that was the best part—no one got off lightly. It was hilarious.
That reminds me of the Kneecap scene where the guy shouts at the loyalists on the Orange Walk.
Yeah, I love that scene. He’s like, ‘Rangers are shite!’ then runs away. Provocative, but tongue-in-cheek. I love that kind of mischief. That’s part of the culture too.
Northern Ireland’s been shafted in a lot of ways. We’re stuck in this old pattern—orange and green—and while we’re caught up in that, other things slip by unnoticed. Like the environment. It’s one of the most environmentally degraded parts of Europe, and no one’s talking about it. We’re all getting screwed in one way or another, but we’re too busy shouting to notice.
That frustration really comes through in ‘Marching Round the Ladies’—that line, ‘It doesn’t matter where you’re from / The Tories fuck us all.’ It’s a great line.
Yeah. What’s funny is, people always say, ‘I love that bit where you say fuck the Tories.’ But I don’t say that. I say ‘the Tories fuck us all.’ There’s a difference. I’m not telling anyone to fuck off. I don’t hate people who vote Conservative. I know people who do. But I completely disagree with the direction things have gone. The Conservative Party has done real damage to the UK—and to itself. That’s what I’m singing about.
And ‘Sycamore Queen’? Was that written about the one that got cut down in Northumberland?
No, actually. I wrote it before that happened. The one I was thinking of was this tree behind the house I grew up in. They cut it down, and it really upset me. I used to talk to it when I was a kid. It felt like a friend.
I think when you’re young, you’re more open—more spiritual in a way. That’s where the song started. It does turn political by the last verse—about oil, destruction, that kind of thing—but it came from something very personal.
Then when that tree in Northumberland was cut down, it was eerie, almost. Like, I’d written this song, and then it actually happened. That happens sometimes. Songs start out as just yours, but they don’t stay that way.
Joshua’s latest album is Teeth of Time:
Teeth of Time (28th February 2025) Nettwerk Music Group
DSPs: https://joshuaburnside.ffm.to/teethoftime
Bandcamp: https://joshuaburnside.bandcamp.com/album/teeth-of-time-2