Share this article Share
On his new album Autofiction, Far Caspian’s Joel Johnston is learning to make peace with the cards he’s been dealt. Following his Crohn’s disease diagnosis in 2021, Johnston felt stuck mourning the loss of his life before, and struggling to cope with not only his new reality, but also an ongoing battle with OCD and anxiety. Autofiction finds the Irish musician discovering the tools he needs to keep moving forward. “I’m now at the point where I don’t really let it define me,” he says. “The lyric ‘your mind changed from a fear to a song’ [on ‘Lough’] is my expression of freedom.”
The lyrics across Autofiction — which dive deep into mental health burdens, self-forgiveness, recovery, and gratitude — are Johnston’s most direct and literal to date. “I just wanted to get the message across,” he says. Freeing himself from internal judgments, Johnston wrote songs for Autofiction with a simple motto: “I’m enjoying this right now and therefore it’s good enough.”
Johnston used his studio experience to approach the making of the album with a fresh mindset. With influences ranging from Broken Social Scene to Supercar, the instrumentation feels light, textured, and energetic. He produced, mixed, and played every instrument himself.