Current Joys

Nick Rattigan of Surf Curse helm leads the solo endeavor Current Joys, whose songs carry tuneful murk and early post-punk hues that summon a daydreamy bedroom rendering of the Cure even as they encompass broad partnerships with rappers, pop vocalists, and further contributors. The project began with the self-recorded Wild Heart in 2013 and went on to deliver five additional albums plus two collections before markedly refining its approach on the still-moody, 16-song Voyager that surfaced in 2021. Following a notable rise in streams triggered by widely shared social-media clips, that release marked the first professional studio effort, the first to employ a supporting band, and the project’s initial outing on Secretly Canadian. Its successor arrived as the varied two-part set LOVE + POP (2023) together with the follow-up LOVE + POP Pt 2 (2024); those discs together included turns from Lil Yachty, Slow Hollows, and additional guests, signaling a further expansion of the sound. Still later in 2024, Rattigan moved once more, this time into dark-hued country and folk on the single “California Rain.”

A Nevada native, Rattigan started Current Joys in Reno by issuing the debut album Wild Heart in January 2013. Around the same period he formed the garage-pop duo Surf Curse alongside guitarist Jacob Rubeck, handling vocals and drums for the pair. Their opening album, Buds, appeared that June, the same month Rattigan put out a trio of EPs first tracked under the name TELE/VISIONS and re-presented as 3 EPs by Current Joys. The Surf Curse EP Sad Boys followed in October, and Rattigan kept generating solo material between the band’s live dates. After the January 2014 full-length 2013 he again cleared the archives with the May collection B-Sides, Rarities, and Demos, which incorporated earlier TELE/VISIONS tracks featuring Julian Jacobs on guitar, Clark Demeritt on bass, and Jackson Scribner on drums. During this stretch Rattigan relocated to New York for film and television work, yet he encountered limited local support for Current Joys while releasing Me Oh My Mirror in February 2015.

Rattigan shifted to Los Angeles in 2016, where Surf Curse soon became a regular presence on the city’s D.I.Y. garage circuit. Aligning with the artist-run Danger Collective label, the duo released their second album, Nothing Yet, in early 2017. Later that year Rattigan made his directorial debut on a music video for Girlpool titled “123,” and Current Joys issued a split EP with the kindred artist BOYO. Current Joys’ sixth album, A Different Age, arrived in March 2018 just as the project’s social-media audience began to grow, generating millions of cumulative catalog streams and selling out theater shows in Los Angeles. Drawing on beloved cult films, Surf Curse unveiled its third full-length, Heaven Surrounds You, on Danger Collective in 2019.

At last open to inviting outside voices into the Current Joys sphere, Rattigan tracked his seventh album with a backing band and additional vocalists at Stinson Beach Studios. The nearly hour-long Voyager, reflecting a clear lift in production values, reached Secretly Canadian in May 2021. Its expansive indie-rock textures and brooding lyrics drew direct inspiration from Rattigan’s cinematic passions, particularly the stylized narratives of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Andrei Tarkovsky. An abbreviated live edition titled The Phantom of the Highland Park Ebell followed three months later. Issued on Secretly Canadian in August 2023, LOVE + POP became an even broader collaborative effort featuring appearances by rapper Lil Yachty along with indie rockers Slow Hollows, pop singer YOUR ANGEL, and others. The sequel album LOVE + POP Pt 2 surfaced the following May and brought an entirely fresh roster of guests including Gonerville and FearDorian. Two months afterward the prolific Rattigan previewed his next direction with the lush, country-gothic single “California Rain” from Current Joys’ twelfth album, East My Love.