To listen to a Current Joys song is to be immersed fully in Nick Rattigan’s world. An avid consumer of cinema, a visual artist as much as he is a musician, Rattigan’s music is tactile, its imagery and sonics conceived simultaneously. It’s unclear where the films Rattigan is inspired by stop and his personal life starts, but the blending is what makes Voyager so remarkable.
On his new LP Voyager, Rattigan eschews lo-fi home recordings for a full band and recording sessions at Stinson Beach Studios. As a vocalist/drummer in his other band Surf Curse, Rattigan had finally opened up to the possibility of working in a professional studio: “I’d just been very stubborn in wanting to do it all my own way, but I guess I’ve kind of opened up the creative process to more people at this point,” Rattigan explains. “ And I think it yields better results.”