At this year’s Folk on Foot Awards – where Teeth of Time was nominated for Folk Album of the Year – Joshua Burnside found himself looking back at a record that no longer felt like his own.

“It’s sort of weird… it feels like I released that album decades ago,” he says. “I guess just a lot has changed from then to now in my life.”

There’s no attempt to smooth over that change.

“I always sort of feel like the person who wrote my own songs in my previous albums is not the person I am now… it feels like I’m just doing covers of those songs.”

That distance is where It’s Not Going to Be Okay begins – not as a concept, but as a condition. Written in the aftermath of the death of his best friend, Dean Jendoubi, the album stays close to what it is, rather than trying to reshape it.

Collaboration, Friendship, Influence

Burnside and Jendoubi’s relationship ran deeper than friendship. They made music together, shaping each other’s instincts early on, with that collaboration captured on Dean’s 2017 record Skin Hunger, which features Burnside.

“We were both big fans of a band called The Books… Dean’s taste in music influenced me and still influences me.”

That shared listening – and making – never really left.

“When I’m writing music, I often think about certain people and if they would like it… and Dean was always one of those people.”

For Burnside, music has always been relational.

“When you’re making music… you’re also kind of making it for your friends.”

Letting the Songs Stand

“I didn’t want to rely on weird sounds or quirky production – I wanted the songs to stand on their own two feet.”

For an artist whose work has often leaned into texture and experimentation, that shift is immediate. On It’s Not Going to Be Okay, the arrangements are stripped back, the space is left open, and the weight falls on what’s being said.

“The lyrics are quite straightforward… sometimes the best way to say it is the simplest way.”

Writing the Everyday

“It seems so obvious to me now to write very real-world sort of lyrics… references to Ikea or Super Monkey Ball… grounding it in the humdrum reality of day-to-day life.”

The influence of Richard Dawson sits behind that shift – a way of writing that allows the everyday to carry meaning without being elevated into something else.

“But that’s what life’s sort of made of… all these little things and all these places and all these references.”

The Weight Carried in Everyday Objects

“It was tennis rackets that Dean and I would play tennis together…”

When asked what objects carried weight, his answer settles on something simple, but deeply held.

“We had this sort of funny system… he would bring the balls and I would bring the rackets… I had his racket and my racket in the same case.”

There’s no explanation for it.

“I don’t know why we did this. It’s just kind of a weird thing.”

He still keeps them and they’ve become something else entirely.

“That brings me a lot of sadness… but also something that I treasure.”

The Artwork: Stripping Back to Essentials

The album artwork follows the same instinct as the music – reduction.

Working within the network of Vault Artist Studios, Burnside developed the visuals in collaboration with Robin Price. What began as a layered composition was gradually stripped back.

“I had loads of stuff all over it even a fireman’s hat”

It didn’t hold.

“It just looked… a bit too busy.”

The process became about removing anything that wasn’t essential.

“Robin said he didn’t like the moon I painted… he said I should just use the snare drum skin.”

The drumhead becomes the moon – a direct link to the music rather than an added symbol. It’s a real object, tied to the life of the record.

That connection carries into the songs. In With You, Burnside references Dean in the line, “the snare you used to play.” It’s understated, but specific – the same object, the same presence, carried across both the sound and the image.

What remains is minimal:

“The water and the sky and the moon… and the two chairs.”