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Jan 15, 2021 By Caleb Campbell Justin Nozuka

Toronto singer/songwriter Justin Nozuka has shared his newest single, “summer night o8,” premiering with Under the Radar. Nozuka returned late last year with his first single since 2018, “No One But You” (feat. Mahalia). With his newest music, Nozuka pivots from the downtempo folk of his 2018 record, Run for Water, instead opting for a warm R&B approach, tinged with intimate soul stylings.

Nozuka’s latest track, “summer night o8” falls into the same velvety smooth R&B/soul lane as his previous single. It’s a classic love song, built for rainy summer days spent indoors. Nozuka’s lithe resonant tones are the gorgeous centerpiece, while the subdued fingerpicked acoustic guitar and subtle percussion add splashes of color. Also adding to the intimacy and immediacy of the track is the crisp production from close collaboratior Mitch Reed. Altogether, Nozuka creates the kind of achingly heartfelt and romantic soul ballad that never goes out of style.

Nozuka says of the track, “This song was written in August of 2019. It was a beautiful summer day and my friend Mitch and I made plans to make some music. We took a healthy dose of psilocybin and went to the park. This big storm cloud kept approaching and we were ready to be under it, but it seemed to never arrive. Mitch went up to my spot to grab his things as he was gonna get going. As he left the storm finally arrived and I lay under it, the rain poured down heavy. I then had this urge to write and ran back, saw Mitch just as he was leaving, and asked “Yo, let’s jam?”. He was absolutely down and we came back up to my spot, he sat on the keys, I grabbed my guitar and the song pretty much wrote itself.

I had just started seeing someone during this time, and the song was an expression of my experience. Just a real classic and effortless connection, feel-good summer love, honestly. We hit up another friend of ours who’s a great drummer/artist (Alex from BBNG), we got together at his studio shortly after this. When we got there, Alex handed me a beautiful Gretsch, put it through a Binson delay, set up a vintage pencil mic for my vocal, and he sat down at the CS-60. We ran two takes and the 2nd take was the vocal/guitar/CS-60 you hear on the track now. Eventually got more players and sounds at Marquee Sound Studio. And that pretty much sums up how this record came to be :)” Check out the song and video below and watch for Justin Nozuka’s new EP, coming this winter via Post 1988/Black Box.