Artist: Josaleigh Pollett
Album: If I Let It Quiet
Release: July 24, 2026; Audio Antihero
Long distance partnership sounds like an impractical way to write and produce an album but Josaleigh Pollett and Jordan Watko have gotten it down to a science. Split between Salt Lake City, Utah and Osaka, Japan, If I Let It Quiet somehow provides a flowing exploration of gender, multiversal probability, and sleepless nights spent overthinking all wrapped in a cocoon of dreamy nostalgia despite the distance. Really, it’s what every fan of indie pop could ever wish for. I know, because I felt like this album was pulled straight from my frequent teenage bouts of daydreaming out of a rainy window, maladaptive style.
It helps, of course, that this is album number four for Josaleigh Pollett, but the evidence of doubt about the unconventional development of the album is there, particularly in the song “Second Guesser”. It’s a song for all the ruminators out there who have lost the person who could pull them out of their anxiety loops. Which, oddly, isn’t as devastating as it sounds. Like I said, the dreamy nostalgia of the music sort of lulls you into a taciturn existence of sorts.
The song that really stood out to me upon first listen was ‘Escape Routes’. Part of it was yet again the overthinker’s paradise of it all, but it had a sort of… optimistic element to it? To me, at least, but it is, of course, just a matter of perspective. There’s a sort of exhilaration when it comes to reckless leaping without a safety net. As the song says, “when you take out your escape routes, you must fight,” as if that isn’t the ultimate show of faith in your own abilities to get what you want.
In all, there’s a sort of frenetic energy about the album that leaves one jumping from one change to the next, one possibility to another, and the love and hope mainlined through it all. Which, I think, is the real appeal to this album. The hope for more and better. The hope of unburdened expression (gender or creative). Developing love for yourself and your creativity. Hell, even the acceptance and love of an unknowable universe.
Maybe that’s just me being a sucker. However, it’s been a while since an album that was so genuinely melancholic at its core invoked such a creative spark in me. What’s the point of all this overthinking and anxiety spirals if nothing changes, right?
Without bearing my soul too much here, I think at least one song from If I Let It Quiet would make it onto the playlist if my head was projected onto a movie screen. As for the song, I’ll keep that to myself. I’ve got to retain some element of mystery here.