Local singer/songwriter Josh Moreira has delivered a bumper release to his South African supporters on July 30 with his debut EP, Homegrown.
This before the 18-year-old heads overseas to fulfil a life-long ambition to study in the USA in August.
The seven-track extended play (EP) is available across all digital platforms via Distrokid with the new single and its music video, Fingertips.
His teenage years belie his music credentials He picked up a guitar at the age of four and began learning songs by ear. Fourteen years later he now adds piano, ukulele and bass to the mix.
Moreira wrote his first song at the age of eight and has already had multiple single releases under his belt, all receiving great critical acclaim and radio rotation. These releases include Falling Apart (2018), Ablaze (2019) and more recently, the first single from the Homegrown EP; Nike Airs in 2020 which talks about having anxiety during lockdown.
Moreira was in matric when lockdown arrived and he decided to challenge himself to make his music 100 per cent his own.
“Homegrown crept up on me quietly,” he said.
“I had made portions of songs that weren’t much on their own, but once I listened through all of them, it hit me. This could be my debut EP if I put in a bit more work. And so, in the height of lockdown, I worked for the entirety of April and May in 2020 to get all these songs finished.
“After a difficult matric year, I began to learn how to mix and master, only fully completing Homegrown in June of 2021. Although that seems like a long time to complete an EP of only seven songs, I aimed for as much perfection as my bedroom studio could give me.”
In true lockdown fashion, he wrote, did the vocals, played all musical instruments, mixed, mastered and produced it all himself. Then he went on to film and produce his own music video for Fingertips.
Moreira now has the exciting opportunity to head to the USA where he has enrolled in a two-year study programme in business administration and management at Jamestown Community College in New York.
