Joshua Ray Walker Announces Stuff, the Second Installment of an Album Trilogy

Joshua Ray Walker is back with his most ambitious concept album to date.

After releasing his summer album, Tropicana, back in June, he returns with Stuff. The album is the second installment in a trilogy of albums, a goal he pushed himself to achieve while undergoing chemotherapy for stage 3B colon cancer.

According to a press release, Walker wrote Stuff as a need to escape. While he created the world of Tropicana, he also contemplated his mortality and the remaining belongings in his life. It happened when he was briefly misdiagnosed with stage 4 cancer, which was later updated to a clean scan. Thinking he only had a limited time left, he set to create three albums, the first being Tropicana and the second being Stuff.

Stuff has songs in which he inhabits the inner lives of inanimate objects, writing each song from the perspective of an item at an estate sale. Walker says he knew during his cancer treatment and thinking about how much life he had left that he, too, had more worth.

“Both my grandparents found value in things that had life left in them,” Walker says. “At the time of writing these songs, I was really hoping that I had a second shot, some more life left in me, and I think that I projected that on many of these characters.”

Stuff will be a stylistic shift for Walker, as he explores stripped-down, experimental indie-folk and Americana, drawing inspiration from the indie music he listened to as a teenager, such as Bon Iver, Beirut and The Postal Service.

Stuff tracklist:

1) "Stuff"
2) "Brick"
3) "Barbie"
4) "Perfume"
5) "Bowling Ball"
6) "Suit"
7) "Shears"
8) "Telephone"
9) "Radio" (Cuchiarella / Banjo / Magic Set)
10) "Home"

The album was made with producer and friend John Pedigo. They spent a week in Pedigo’s backyard studio, setting strict ground rules: Everything on the album had to be found in the studio, and the pair would play all instruments. Some of these instruments, like toy reed organs, synthesizers, banjoleles, melodicas and more, have not been used on his previous albums.

Walker hopes that when people listen to Stuff and connect with the inanimate characters, they will also feel better when they connect with living ones.

“It's probably lofty to think that an album about bowling balls and Barbie dolls is going to make people think about their relationship with their neighbors or community,” he says. “But maybe subconsciously, if people can connect with these things that aren't even people, it'll make them a little better at connecting with people.”

You can stream the title track “Stuff” below.