The timeless indie-rock delight, bolstered by kinetic guitar riffs and a steady drum beat, arrives with a claymation video by Alistair Nicholls. “I wrote ‘Pet Architect’ after a Crohn’s flare up I had on tour that made me feel alienated from the rest of the group,” explains the project of Leeds, UK-based Irish musician Joel Johnston—today. “I try my best not to feel sorry for myself or dwell on my situation but certain times have pushed me into frustration. In that moment, all I wanted was to feel ‘normal’ instead of lying on the floor in pain in the airport baggage claim. Whenever I got home I was in the headspace of wishing I was back to how I was before my diagnosis. I was reading about Japanese architecture and how they filled in tiny spaces on the street between buildings with condensed buildings and I felt like that worked as a metaphor for how I felt being pushed into an illness that wasn’t there previously.”

“Pet Architect” also arrives with companion B-side singles “Heirloom Pt. 1 & 2” (with Pt. 1 featuring Philadelphia-based 22° Halo). The LP’s previous singles “Arbitrary Task,” “The Last Remaining Light,” and “Own.”

Anchored by Johnston’s dogged attention to detail—he writes, performs, records, and mixes everything himself—Far Caspian’s music consistently feels like its own self-contained world, full of densely packed hooks and guitar-based atmospherics. With The Last Remaining Light, he’s made his most cohesive and compelling work yet. The album is the result of Johnston streamlining his approach in the studio, finding inspiration in peeling back his tracks’ layers in a way that’s both rewarding and immediate in its simplicity.

Work on The Last Remaining Light began right after Johnston turned in mixes for his 2021 debut LP Ways To Get Out. Whereas that previous album was the result of almost two years of tinkering and finding his sound, Johnston decided to set clear limits and a hard deadline for its follow up. “This process was more about following my intuition rather than getting in my head and rewriting everything over and over,” he says.

Pre-order The Last Remaining Light by Far Caspian HERE