I remember the first time I heard the rumble. It’s buried in the middle of "Mountains," a track that somehow feels like both a heavy blanket and a sharp intake of cold air. I eventually learned from Jakob Deist—the South African-born, Essex-based architect behind We Are All Fossils—that the sound is actually audio from a SpaceX rocket launch. He tucked it in there as a private nudge to be thankful for music after the silence of the lockdowns. It’s that kind of detail—the cosmic meeting the deeply personal—that defines his latest collection, Gravity in Grief.
Jakob and I spent a Monday morning almost two years ago chatting about his journey from the surf havens of Durban to the "gloomy" January birthdays of England. He’s a man who speaks about music not as a career ladder, but as a "byproduct of the time we have together" with friends. That lack of ego is all over this record. This isn't a "polished" studio product; it’s a raw exploration of what happens to a person when the world stops spinning.
The Weight of What’s Left Behind
The album’s title is a literal description of the physical toll of loss. Jakob lost his mother two years ago, an event that shifted his writing from "introspective" to something far more elemental.
"In My Head" is perhaps the most devastating example of this. It captures that glitch in the human brain that occurs after someone dies: the moment you reach for the phone to share a thought, only to remember they aren't there.
"Now every time I want to talk / I forget / That now these moments only live / In my head".
It’s a simple realization, but the way Deist delivers it feels like a punch to the gut. During our talk, he mentioned that he’s become way more experimental recording at home, mostly because he doesn't want to "waste" his producer’s time in the studio with his "crazy" ideas. But honestly? That "crazy" honesty is exactly what makes these tracks stick.
A Masterclass in Specificity
If you want to know what grief actually looks like—not the movie version, but the real thing—look at "Joyce Byers Method". The title is a nod to Stranger Things, referencing the character who uses Christmas lights to communicate with her missing son. It’s a brilliant, slightly eccentric metaphor for the desperation of wanting a sign from the other side.
The Loneliness: "I still need the television on / Along with the lights / Pretend you're at home / Cause I've never been this alone".
The Ritual: "So I find the Christmas lights / And I see if they work... So I write the letters on the wall / And hope that the light begins to talk".
There’s a line in there about taking "three flights" and "boarding a new life" at age nine. It’s a brief, flickering reference to his move from South Africa to the UK—a transition his parents made 25 years ago that he still seems to be processing. It’s these specific, lived-in details that elevate the album. It’s not just "sad music"; it’s Jakob’s music.
The Sound of Moving On (Or Not)
The record fluctuates between atmospheric textures and the driving, existential dread of "We Live To Die". The latter features a refrain that might seem morbid to some, but as Jakob told me, the name We Are All Fossils is actually meant to be unifying. We’re all "fossils in the making," eventually ending up in the same place, which, in a strange way, makes our current disconnect as a human race feel a bit silly.
"April Fools" is another standout that deserves a mention. It tackles the cruel irony of the calendar.
"I go shopping / For the right clothes to wear / But everywhere I look / I see that Mother's Day / Is here".
He describes the "tie feeling like a noose" and the desperate wish that the whole ordeal was just a cosmic prank: "I'm sorry my boy but it's an April Fools". It’s heavy stuff, man. Really heavy. But there's a light at the end of it. The track "Rapture" asks the big question: "Do I give up now and give in / Do I give up now or fight / To stand there in the sunlight".
Final Thoughts
Jakob Deist is an artist who draws from the same well as Sufjan Stevens and Gregory Alan Isakov—two musicians we geeked out over during the interview. He has that same ability to make a banjo sound like a heartbreak.
Gravity in Grief is an album for the quiet hours. It’s for when you're driving home late at night and the heater is the only sound in the car. It’s a record that offers company whether your loneliness is from a romantic heartbreak or from a loss of a loved one. And in a world where we're all just fossils-to-be, maybe that's enough.