Joseph “Josi” Costi has spent years as a pianist, composer, and collaborator moving between jazz, world music, and experimental projects. His resume is long and eclectic, but Joya is the first release where he steps forward simply as a songwriter with a guitar in hand. Recorded in Richmond, UK, while house-sitting for his sister in the spring of 2024, the album is the product of a temporary home turned into a makeshift studio.
Costi worked with engineer Viktor Volaric-Horvat, who brought a four-track tape machine and console into the family living room. Old friends Tal Janes (guitar) and Ben Reed (bass) joined the sessions, and the trio tracked ten songs live. Percussion came later from Rod Oughton, another longtime collaborator. The house itself bled into the record: creaks from the floor, footsteps upstairs, birds from Richmond Park. Rather than cut them out, Costi kept them, letting the environment sit inside the songs.
After the core takes, Janes and Costi layered textures: harmonium, bells, piano, synths, building around the live core without sanding it down. Brett Shaw mixed the record at 123 Studios, continuing a working relationship from Costi’s years as a session player.
The result is an album that feels unvarnished but deliberate. You hear the closeness of friends who know each other’s playing, the looseness of a room not built for recording, and the patience of someone testing out his own voice as a writer. Joya documents a shift in identity: from composer to singer-songwriter, from theory to presence.
This is the kind of record that would sit easily in independent films, character-driven dramas, or series looking for quiet but emotionally direct moments.
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