Please allow me to break the fourth wall here for the sake of transparency: I’m completely enamored with Joji’s music, and for that reason I can’t promise that this will be a proper critique. I expect this to occupy some intersection between a musical highlight reel and all-out fangirling, sometimes vacillating between the two, sometimes blurring the lines between those categories, but I think any discussion of Joji’s music for me would have to begin with how Joji’s music began for me.

•

Biking through the chilly March night on my way to Music @ Mars, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. It was my second time covering a Music @ Mars showcase for The Daily, and when I entered the lounge and saw the warm fairy lights, instruments and enthusiastic crowd—…

•

The eclectic mix of instruments, festive wall decorations, voices and laughter uncharacteristically lively for Week 9 gave the Music @ Mars showcase on Nov. 20 a promising outlook even before the show started.

•

Not everyone has Mike Posner’s money and can afford to slug off the world as quickly as he did into the wilderness. But I think his words are important nonetheless. Before we are anything, we are human, and our time on Earth is finite and precious.

•