Tag Archives: new music

New video release, “Hymn part 1”!

We are excited to release a music video for “Hymn part 1”, the first track off of our latest album, Hymn, released by Procrastination Records in June 2020!

It was featured by Bob Boilen on All Songs Considered in Janurary 2019, when we first released it as a single with “Punk Jazz” (which also has a video, by Cody Nenninger of Momentum Productions in Baltimore).

A few years ago, I took the photo that was used as the album cover for Hymn, a close up of some beach grass in Southern Maryland, where my parents live. When John and I were deciding what to use for the cover, we were looking through photos I’ve taken and we landed on that one. We edited it and designed the cover together, and really liked the result of the darkened, highly contrasted grass that looks illuminated.

Since last year, we’ve been working with a fantastic video artist team, Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac. They created a stunning video for our song “Uh Huh,” one of our quartet songs with poet/vocalist Dan Gutstein, and they are currently working on a video for “Selfies,” another song from this material. Seeing their work and how well it connected to and added to the music inspired me.

I was thinking of ways to ease into digital animation, and thought about trying to work with just the cover photo. I changed the position and size and used different visual effects to create a choppy looking, morphing animation, and knew this is how the video would start.

If you’ve ever glanced at my Instagram, you know that I cannot stop taking pictures of plants (and our cat, Funz). There is a historic cemetery near where we live in Trenton, and I’ve walked there almost every day since mid-March. And during that time, I’ve taken many, many pictures of plants. So, thinking about the vibe of “Hymn,” and how joyous it is (probably our most “hippy” song, lol) I started taking short videos of grass blowing in the wind, on a few beautiful days in August. I was also able to visit my folks in MD and captured some video of the OG beach grass.

I put all the videos together with the song, but knew it was missing something. I showed it to John and he recommended a few things, the main ones being adding live footage of the band, and using the birds from the first drum fill again—during the drum solo towards the end. I found some footage that we forgot about, from a show (what’s that??) 2 years ago at Sunnyvale in Brooklyn, shot by Stephen Herchen, Zach Herchen’s father. Zach is our guest saxophonist who also did some audio engineering for part of the Hymn album.

Many thanks to John for helping finish up the video, and thanks to Stephen Herchen for letting us use the video of the band. And thank you to Tommy Hambleton again for releasing Hymn. We hope you enjoy this, and please subscribe to our Youtube channel and check out the other videos there. We have some more coming soon that we are really excited about!

Uh Huh is a Los Angeles Rocks Film Festival Official Selection!

We’re excited to announce that Uh Huh is an Official Selection for another film festival, the Los Angeles Rocks Film Festival. They will be including our music video in their sister festival, LONDON ROCKS, which will take place 24-31 October 2020, with online events and a physical screening.

You can watch the video below, as well as the trailer for it!


JOY ON FIRE // UH HUH // OFFICIAL TRAILER // 2020 from Gabriela Bulisova & Mark Isaac on Vimeo.

New Joy on Fire album: HYMN

Out now on Procrastination Records! Available on our Bandcamp, as well as Spotify, Apple Music and more, links here.


The songs on Hymn were written at a strange time in the band’s history.  Anna and I were living in North Carolina, as Anna was attending UNCG as a music composition major, and this is when Chris, who lived and still lives in Fort Lee, NJ, joined the band.  The basic method of the band’s functioning during this time was to meet in the middle, in Baltimore (where the band was originally formed with a different lineup), for rehearsals, many of our gigs, and recording.

            Hymn, like Fire with Fire, Joy on Fire’s first release on Procrastination Records, was recorded at Mobtown Studios by Mat Leffler-Schulman, and mastered by Bill Hafener at Silo Recordings in Shirley, NY.  A single from the record was released earlier this year by Procrastination, and it features the opening title track from the album, which was debuted by Bob Boilen on NPR’s All Songs Considered in 2019, as well as “Punk Jazz,” a video for which was produced by Cody Nenninger at Momentum Productions.

            Though these songs certainly have a place in our hearts, the heart of the album, to my thoughts, is in the more epic material between these two tunes.  The second track, “Hymn part 2,” features Pascal Le Boeuf on piano, and was written collaboratively by Anna, Chris, and myself at a rehearsal probably at Baltimore’s Fifth Dimension artist collective.   The third track, “Rhopareptilia,” also features piano, but this time performed by Rachel Aubuchon, recorded by Anna in NC.  Anna wrote “Rhopareptilia,” and originally performed it at UNCG with herself on baritone sax, Xin Gao on alto sax, and Rachel on piano.  By the time this track was being produced as a Joy on Fire song, Anna and I had moved to New Jersey, with Anna attending Princeton, and the baritone sax part had been changed to cello, played on the record by Domenica Romagni.  I also arranged a drum and bass part, no more than two-minute’s worth, that enters and exits the nine-minute epic three times—the third, along with the swelling reverberation produced by Anna via pitch shifting and time stretching sax trills, gives the peak of the composition the feeling of hard earned triumph and spectacular loss.

            “The Complete Book of Bonsai part 2” (part 1 is on our self-titled debut album, rereleased by Procrastination in 2018) I wrote in the first house Anna and I lived at in NC, a large rented shack with a huge dirt back yard.  (We had a party back there once where Domenica serenaded a one-winged seagull with bird sounds on her cello, and Anna playfully chased Bill the Seagull around the yard on her bicycle, but this is a story for another time.)  This house was good to us, as it was literally dirt cheap and we both got a lot of writing done there.  Though the fourth section of “Bonsai 2” was written collaboratively at Mobtown, I wrote the first three sections at our rehearsal room at 1029 on what’s now called South Josephine Boyd Street.  The house has since been torn down and is currently a used car lot.

Joy on Fire would like to thank those involved with Hymn not mentioned above, including: saxophonist Zach Herchen who, along with Anna, did additional engineering for the record at Princeton Studio B; NC drummer Mike Carney, who rehearsed and performed early versions of several of the songs on Hymn; composer Ruby Fulton for her kindness at the Fifth Dimension; Joe Martin of 3rd Grade Friends simply for being the man; Paul Joyce of F for shredding all these years; eloquent guitarist Mike Quoma of Dog Adrift and the Mooselab Space in Dumbo; Ted Zook of the always enlightening and surprising Fanoplane; Dan Gutstein, JoF’s newest member, on the pen & mic; Gareth Thompson of All About Jazz for his inspiring words; and especially Tommy Hambleton of Penny Pistelero and Procrastination Records—and who is featured on lapsteel guitar on our upcoming EP Another Adventure in Red.

Joy on Fire Featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered

2019 is off to an AMAZING start for Joy on Fire. Two weeks into the new year and we find ourselves honored with a spot on NPR’s All Songs Considered, hosted by Bob Boilen.

On this episode of the podcast, Bob features JoF’s latest single Hymn which will appear on the upcoming album of the same name. Of Joy on Fire, Bob says, “It’s a perfect name for the band, and they just blew me away—they are just so fantastic.” The Joy on Fire segment begins around the 14-minute mark, but check out the whole show. We’re in good company, as other segments include Lana Del Rey, Telekinesis, and The Wild Reeds.

Joy on Fire at the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, June 9, 2018.
Photo by Brian Jenkins

Hymn, written by John Paul Carillo, is a hopeful and bittersweet celebration of the life of his mother, whose passing inspired him to capture her sense of humor and joyous spirit in song. You can listen to the song on our bandcamp page, where you’ll also find our first two releases, Fire with Fire, released November 1, 2017 on Procrastination Records, and The Complete Book of Bonsai, released independently on September 1, 2013.

Bob is an aficionado of vintage synthesizers and makes adventurous electronic music, which is how we first came to meet him.  He sat in regularly with DC-based improvisational renegades Heterodyne during the band’s lifespan.  Joy on Fire shared the stage with Heterodyne many times and has become friends and comrades with the group.  Be sure to check out Heterodyne’s deep archive of expansive improvisations, as well as Bob’s absolutely beautiful ambient album, Take It To Bed: Music For Clouds.

Bob performing on the Arp Odyssey synthesizer with Heterodyne, led by Maria Shesiuk and Ted Zook. Photo by Aaron Mertes

So, thanks very much to Bob Boilen, All Songs Considered producer and co-host Robin Hilton, and the whole All Songs Considered crew for an auspicious start to the new year. We are grateful for your support and enthusiasm. Stay tuned for much more excitement in 2019.