Joshua Stamper

Joshua Stamper is sort of the house arranger for Sounds Familyre records, which releases a lot of the cream of the evangelical indie pop -- Danielson, Wovenhand, etc. He's also a pretty interesting contemporary composer, whose self-release album Interstitials, I reviewed for Dusted this week.

Joshua Stamper
Interstitials

Joshua Stamper has made his share of “interstitial” music, arranging the horn, string and woodwind breaks for artists like Danielson, Twin Sister and Ben + Vesper. He’s a subtle element in a whole catalog of eccentric pop music, taking on the colors, chameleon-style, of the artists he’s working with. Listen hard, for instance, and you can make out his impact, in the chamber music swells that tip Dan Zimmerman’s “Silence Is a Golden Mountain” from morosity to resilience, in the blasts of horns and string embellishments that separate I Was a King’s Old Friends from the common run of power pop, or in the gleaming string textures that make Twin Sister’s upcoming In Heaven glisten with eeriness.


On his own account, Stamper has made six full-length recordings, composing for various jazz ensembles, chamber groups, films and himself. Interstitials employs a broad palette of instruments – voice, guitar, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, flute and others – in compositions that are dense, but never overcrowded.

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I got a really nice note from Joshua just after the review went up.