Al Joshua was the lead singer and songwriter in Orphans & Vandals. In 2009 they released their debut album to wide critical acclaim:

"The single most exciting band I've encountered." - Tom Robinson, BBC6

"A stricken, subtonic dream of London that makes the capital feel fresh" - NME

"I feel that we could potentially look back upon 'I am alive and you are dead' in years to come and view it as a classic. We should celebrate it for its vision and for its courage" - Artrocker Magazine

"This is the best band in London... This is music as a living breathing entity; nothing by numbers... In an hour they prove that this is one of the years most exciting releases from one of the most exciting singer-songwriters to come out of London in an age.." - The Gay Times

Five years later, Al Joshua has suddenly re-emerged with a huge amount of astonishing new songs that people are finding profound, funny and deeply moving.
His new songs now delivered with a more intimate voice have the ability to mesmerise and haunt the listener whilst offering the occasional flashes of insight into where Al has been for the last five years.

One clue about his whereabouts is the forthcoming feature film he wrote called , “Set the Thames on Fire”, described as a dark, surreal, satirical comedy about two boys trying to survive and find hope whilst falling through the cogs of a nightmarish fantasy London of night times, dawns and dusk,like one of his coming to life and is being released in 2015.

I visited Al in his tiny little box room in the middle of London.  Surrounded by pictures of art and faces, postcards of faraway places. A coffee machine was gurgling in the back ground notebooks left open on the piano, a tattooed boy sleeping apparently untroubled by my intrusion. Al played me a handful of the most subtle, the most exquisite and the most moving original songs I can remember hearing, I got the sense of a profoundly exciting new solo artist who is more than ready to step back into the spotlight.
Daveid Phillips


