[PRE-ORDER] Stars Reroll [CD]

Chicago-based songwriter / producer / multi-instrumentalist Joey Meland makes music under the name Cocojoey. Their album STARS (HAUSMO144, 2025) stands as a contemporary landmark in the Hausu Mountain catalog, showcasing their ecstatic approach to pop music that overflows with finely wrought details and juxtaposed flashes of far-flung genres. Meland's omnivorous compositions tie together aspects of prog, death metal, video game music, experimental electronics, and untold other styles into luminescent pieces that still hit as pop tunes. Animated by their creator's penchant for earworm hooks and dazzling melodic architectures, Cocojoey's songs teem with their virtuosic keyboard performances and vocal takes that flit from gorgeous operatic falsetto all the way to guttural growls that activate the mosh pit whenever they perform live. A calendar year after the album's release, STARS gets a second orbit around the galaxy in the form of STARS REROLL. Though nominally a collection of remixes, the fellow Hausu Mountain artists that Meland asked to rework songs from STARS treat the source material as a jumping-off point to sculpt bespoke worlds of their own, infused with the sonic signatures and future-facing production styles that each artist explores in their own music. Hausu Mountain is nothing if not a family enterprise, as the label's artists regularly make music together, play shows and tour together, and consider each other close friends. With STARS REROLL, the roster of buds gleefully deconstructs and rebuilds Cocojoey's album, following their own ideas wherever they may lead while never losing the euphoric energy and stylistic variety that made the original shine so brightly. Remix contributors include Fire-Toolz, RXM Reality, d'Eon, Trust Fund Ozu, and Hausu Mountain head honchos Mukqs, and MrDougDoug. The album features two remixes by Cocojoey that transform their own TINY SPRITE IN THE ORCHESTRA OF THE STARS into two new versions.