Brooklyn-based composer and producer Josh McCausland returns with ‘Pieces from a Forgotten Time’ — a cinematic and emotionally rich body of work that blurs the lines between ambient electronica and neo-classical storytelling. Known for his textural approach to music-making and a background steeped in film and photography, McCausland crafts soundscapes that feel like intimate reflections captured through a lens of quiet nostalgia.
The album’s lead single, ‘Lurking Within’, showcases McCausland at his most sonically adventurous. It’s a gripping piece of experimental electronica built around haunting melodies, ethereal piano lines, and immersive sound design. At once hypnotic and deeply human, the track floats between minimal techno and the melancholic weight of cinematic scoring, echoing the sonic tension of shows like Severance or the emotional pull of a Max Richter score.
“I’ve always been drawn to contrast,” McCausland says. “Beauty amid chaos. Thatʼs the balance I’m chasing. This track is a reflection of that moment in my life: uncertain, restless, but still reaching for something meaningful.”
“‘Lurking Within’ is about the quiet things we carry — the thoughts, fears, or memories that sit just beneath the surface. Itʼs not about some dramatic explosion of emotion, but the subtle, persistent weight of something unresolved. To me, it feels like the sound of tension that hasnʼt found its release yet.”
About ‘Pieces from a Forgotten Time’
‘Pieces from a Forgotten Time’ marks McCausland’s continued evolution as an artist. While his previous releases, including fan-favorite “Opus 30,” built his reputation among ambient and classical audiences (with features on Spotify’s Peaceful Piano and Deep Focus playlists), this latest collection pushes further into the experimental realm. The compositions here breathe and evolve, often feeling more like unfolding scenes than songs, held together by Josh’s meticulous attention to detail and emotional resonance.
About Josh McCausland
Originally from Dayton, Ohio, McCausland’s creative journey began in visual storytelling — filmmaking, photography, and design. Music became a space of personal exploration, away from deadlines and deliverables. That sense of freedom permeates ‘Pieces from a Forgotten Time’ — an album born from stillness, reflection, and a search for meaning in the quiet moments of life.
Josh’s work has been licensed across major platforms, including HBO, Discovery, and Amazon Prime, and he has reached over 4 million global listeners across digital platforms. With ‘Pieces from a Forgotten Time’, McCausland invites audiences into a beautifully constructed world — one where time slows, emotions linger, and the unspoken comes to life through sound.
Q&A
How was the art from your album made, and what do the literal ‘missing pieces’ and swirling black and white marble look represent?
The cover art was created by my friend, very talented writer and visual artist Daniel Adams-Dufresne (aka @artificelux). His answer is below.
The art was made entirely using Photoshop and Illustrator, with special noise-based gradient maps for the texture (never any AI). Most of it was done while listening to an early mix of the album.
As for the symbolism: the missing circles are like a life story, who we are now, minus the pieces we’ve lost, plus the dark circles, which are the pieces that have calcified. All of them are memories and building blocks… pieces from a forgotten time.
In the artwork for the singles, each shows just a solitary circle, like each track is its own piece.
In a similar vein, the marble-like texture feels both permanent and changeable, as if the wavy lines could come to life at any moment. I use a lot of grainy distortion and marks of dissolution in my artworks, but wanted something less gritty to befit this album… trying to express that distortion differently is what led me to this final texture.
Where were most of your pieces from your new album composed? Do you feel that where you compose makes an audible difference in your work(s)?
Most of the album was written in our one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I travel a lot, so the sounds of movement — trains, planes, city streets — often linger in my head, even when it’s quiet. I think that residual hum shows up in the music. I believe location affects how a song feels, but for me, due to space and resources, it all gets made right there in that small room — and I think that gives the work a certain closeness and rawness.
Do you have any particular ritual you complete before composing? Grab a cup of tea? How do you get into a flow state?
Honestly, no strict ritual — I have a lot of unfinished ideas sitting around. Like… a lot, lot. I usually start something, get bored, move on, and later go back and sift through what I’ve made until a few tracks start to feel ready to grow.
Lighting matters a lot to me. I don’t work well in overly bright spaces — moody lighting, LED glow, that’s where I thrive creatively. That said, I do love tracking live instruments in natural light.
When I know it’s time to write, I just know. Sometimes I’ll get a melody looped in my head and can’t move on with anything else until I get it out. That’s usually the signal.
The bass in ‘Lurking Within’ is so broad and deep… directly contrasting the delicate, treble in the ethereal piano. Can you tell us a bit about your EQing and other post-production processes?
My post-production process is pretty simple. I try not to overproduce. In Lurking Within, the bass anchors the whole piece — it pushes and pulls against the piano bits, and they live on opposite ends of the EQ. The mids fight for attention in a way that creates this natural tension.
I learned a lot during this project, including things I’d do differently. I think I could’ve carved out a little more of the low end, but I like where it landed.
As for tools, I love analog gear. I often run audio from my DAW through my Resonant Garden, which gives me beautiful, unpredictable reverb tails and weird harmonic swells. I also use iZotope’s Trash on almost every project — it lets me destroy and reshape sounds in a way that makes them feel human and imperfect, which I love.
I listened to your album, ‘Back to My Roots’, just after ‘Pieces From a Forgotten Time’. It’s melodic, homey, and a wonderful concept album. This led me to wonder…How does being a professional guitar player affect your voicing and compositional workflow?
I think it influences me a lot, even if subtly. Singing has always made me anxious, so the guitar kind of became my voice. My style is pretty patient and minimal, and I think that translates into the way I build ambient or cinematic compositions.
That said, I love how different this album feels from my guitar work. It’s chaotic, unpredictable, and often feels like it’s barely holding together — but in a good way. When I play guitar, I sometimes get stuck in patterns or muscle memory. But with piano, I’m completely untrained and unfiltered — it’s just me, mashing keys until something clicks or feels right.
It’s like handing a hormonal teenage boy a sledgehammer in a china shop and saying, “Have fun.” And somehow, that’s my process — and I enjoy it.
Finally, you mention that ‘Lurking Within’ reflects a moment in your life which was ”uncertain, restless, but still reaching for something meaningful”. What is it exactly that you were reaching for? What elements of music did you employ to make the feeling become so life-like?
I think I was reaching for a sense of meaning, plain and simple, but also kind of enormous. I wrote a lot of this album in my early 30s, in a phase where I was asking big, unanswerable questions: What’s my purpose? What’s all the grind for? Will I regret how I’ve spent my time?
I had just moved to NYC and gotten married, and my personal life felt solid — something I could lean on. But creatively and professionally, I was unsure. That’s where the restlessness came from.
And I spiral sometimes when I start asking those big questions. That’s the feeling Lurking Within captures — that tension of searching for something without even knowing exactly what it is.
I’ve come to realize those questions may never have clean answers. You just learn to break them into manageable pieces and keep moving. But music helps me process all of it. It lets me translate what’s happening inside into something I can sit with. It’s a reflection of the way I think — scattered, searching, but always chasing something real. Well, real enough.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/joshmccauslandmusic
https://www.instagram.com/joshmccauslandmusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/70EghZfRvZlYZt3JcdMIGe
https://www.youtube.com/c/joshmccauslandmusic