A Chat with Jonah Connock (02.06.26)
With I Kept Your Secret, Saoirse, Jonah Connock delivers a debut rooted in emotional restraint and understated acoustic intimacy. The eight-track record prioritises atmosphere and consistency, revealing a songwriter with a strong instinct for mood and reflection. While the album occasionally sacrifices distinction for cohesion, it offers an intriguing first statement from an artist still defining the contours of his voice.
OSR: I Kept Your Secret, Saoirse, feels very intimate and restrained. Was that always the intention, or did it evolve during recording?
Connock: Having previously played in a band, I went into this knowing I wanted my solo album to feel like an intimate conversation, as though I was sitting in the room with the person listening. It was a conscious decision to make a stripped-back acoustic record with limited instrumentation, because I wanted to challenge and develop my song-writing. By putting the focus on the lyrics, vocals and guitar, I had to think carefully about the arrangements. Some songs needed space to breathe while others needed to be sharpened up. For example, I loved double-tracking the vocals on ‘Letter to You’, which was directly influenced by Elliott Smith. His recordings feel intimate and honest, and there’s really nowhere for your voice to hide. I think that same sense of vulnerability runs throughout this album.
OSR: The album leans heavily on acoustic guitar and space. How did you decide what not to include in the arrangements?
Connock: I didn’t want to over-complicate the songs. I wanted them to feel confessional and conversational, with the arrangements serving the songs rather than distracting from them. My producer was keen to add drums to several of the tracks, but I felt that would take away from the intimacy. Although the album sounds sparse, there is actually a lot of layering in the guitars and vocals, with carefully chosen instruments that add atmosphere: the harmonica on ‘Black Dress’ and the slide guitar on ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You’ are good examples. Every decision comes back to the same question: will it make the listener feel like they’re in the room with me?
OSR: ‘Letter to You’ is described as the first song you ever wrote. What made it the right track to open your debut album?
Connock: ‘Letter to You’ was the first song I wrote for the album, guided by my guitar teacher. Putting it as the first track on the album is a thank you to him – for his teaching and everything I learned from his musicality and songwriting. The song emerged from a period of emotional upheaval, and writing it helped me process and reflect on the experience. I always knew it would open the album. At one stage I considered calling the album ‘Letters to You’, but this song seemed to be the letter I never got to send. And somehow it felt right that listeners to the album should begin here too.
OSR: There’s a strong sense of coastal imagery throughout the record. How much did the environment and place shape the writing process?
Connock: I think everyone forms emotional connections with landscapes – place inevitably becomes part of the story. It was impossible for me not to attach emotional experiences to the Cornish coast. I’ve been going there since I was about 6 and it has had a lasting influence. The sea has a music of its own – it can feel calming, uplifting and melancholic, sometimes all in the same day! There is also an unpredictability to it, and I think songwriting is much the same. You never quite know how a song is going to arrive, and its shape can change as unexpectedly as the tide.
OSR: Did working with producers Adam and Lawrence Purnell change how you approached your own songs in the studio?
Connock: Absolutely. This was my first experience recording an album. They taught me how to fully realise a song in the studio. As a solo artist, it’s easy to assume a song is finished because you’ve lived with it for so long. Adam and Lawrence brought fresh perspectives, helping shape each track into something new whilst staying completely true to the bones of the song and understanding the creative direction I wanted to go in. One area where their expertise really stood out was in the intros. Before recording, I’d never given much thought to how a song begins – you just start playing? But those opening bars can completely change how a listener experiences a song. We spent an extraordinary amount of time on the intros. On ‘Letter to You’, the intro is actually the guitar melody reversed (a secret I’ve now let slip!). For ‘Tongue-Tied’, I dug through old voicemails for more time than I would have liked (that will remain a mystery!). By contrast, ‘Bones’ was improvised in the moment. They also taught me not to rely on equipment to create atmosphere. Lawrence was convinced ‘Clandestine’ would sound better recorded in the bathroom than the studio. He was right, and so we shifted all the recording kit into the bathroom and recorded it there!
OSR: A lot of the vocals feel very close and unfiltered. Were those takes about performance, or about capturing emotion in the moment?
Connock: Going into the studio, I had listened extensively to Elliott Smith, Neil Young and Nick Drake, trying to immerse myself in the mindset of those early stripped-back recordings. What I took from them is that perfection isn’t always the goal. Sometimes the lyrics need to do the heavy lifting; sometimes the off note is the most human and affecting moment in a song. Finding the balance between technical performance and emotional honesty wasn’t always easy, and every song demanded something different. ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You’ was particularly challenging because Tom Waits’ original is so iconic. I knew I had to find my own way into the song; otherwise it would be karaoke. I ended up creating a new melody whilst taking my voice into a lower register. Tom Waits is one of my favourite musicians of all time – so whilst the song fits naturally within the album, my version is really just an ode to him.
OSR: The album moves between themes of memory, resilience and uncertainty. Was there a central idea you kept returning to while writing?
Connock: I think the central idea was the relationship between love and loss. To truly understand one, you have to experience the other. I was journaling the things going on in my life, and literature has always been a huge passion of mine, so poetry definitely influences and runs through my lyrics. I found myself returning to memory whilst also looking ahead to imagined futures and possibilities. Connecting those two perspectives – the past and the future – felt important. I also wanted the album to offer a sense of hope. Wanting something gives no guarantee it will happen, but it’s important to know that things can still turn out well in the end.
OSR: How did you decide on the sequencing of the eight tracks, particularly the decision to close with ‘Clandestine’?
Connock: ‘Clandestine’ was always going to be the closing track. It’s a deceptively simple track – but it has an almost hymnal quality that brings the album to a beautiful, haunting close. More than anything, it leaves me with a sense of hope, and I wanted that note to be the final thing the listener takes away. When I wrote it, I felt ‘Fly Away’ was a good fit for the mid-point of the album, but honestly the songs found their own place on the tracklist. I didn’t have to think about it too much; they just fell in the right order. I asked a couple of people what the tracklist should be and it pretty much matched my thoughts. I think having a rock-solid position on the opening and closing tracks really helped.
OSR: Were there songs that didn’t make the final album, and if so, what did they lack compared to the final selection?
Connock: Yes. Some finished, some unfinished. There are a couple that I love, but they just didn’t fit the album sound. Some songs need a bigger sound and probably deserve a band to bring them to life. Some lyrics need a lot more development – every songwriter could fill books with half-lines and odd verses! But I think you know when you’re ready for a song to go out in the wild. All of the songs on the album have a special meaning to me; I didn’t want to compromise that, and I guess that’s why these ultimately made it.
OSR: Now that the record is out and building an audience, what part of it feels most different to how you imagined it during writing?
Connock: The part of it that feels most special and different isn’t about what I feel when listening to the songs or what I’d do differently if I recorded them again; it’s how I look at the songs after people have listened to them. They’re not mine anymore; they’re something that other people relate to and put their own meaning over. An example of this is when my friend came up after my album launch showcase. He loved ‘Bones’ and called it an amazing love song. I hadn’t written it that way, but I didn’t feel the need to correct him. Because, in that moment, my song gave him a feeling which was personal to him, something I hadn’t written into the song – that’s the most incredible feeling. I love that the songs have the studio production quality, but still feel like the songs you’ll hear when you see me play them live.
Many thanks to Jonah Connock for speaking with us. Find out more about Jonah Connock on his Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify.
