SHORTLIST 2025
The Joy Hotel
— Ceremony

- Label: SO Recordings
- Released: 19 July 2024
The Joy Hotel
In the summer of 2018, two songwriters met and formed a friendship and a musical partnership. The chemistry was instantaneous. They called upon names they knew one by one until there were seven: Emme Woods, Luke Boyce, Jack Boyce, Jack Borrill, Jenny Clifford, Juan Laforet, Scott Flanagan. The following three years were dedicated to writing and arranging songs and piecing together a live show.
The Joy Hotel played their first at The Blue Arrow in Glasgow, which sold out through word-of-mouth alone, as did their next three hometown headline performances at McChuill’s, King Tut’s and St. Luke’s, doubling the venue size with each show and selling
every ticket they put on sale. They took the act to festivals across the U.K. - Hidden Door, Doune the Rabbit Hole, Connect, TRNSMT, Twisterella, Latitude, Sound City, The Great Escape - and to Europe - France, Malta, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands
Ceremony
The band then spent eleven days at Rockfield, the legendary studio in Monmouth, Wales, recording live-to-tape. When they left, they had a sound. It is often contradictory, in that it combines the songwriting sensibilities of pop and country with arrangements reminiscent of the psychedelic scene of the 60s, six-part vocal harmonies with elements of noise rock, beautiful balladry with a sense of humour, and is cinematic even when stripped of
any visual aspects. The result of those eleven days is ‘Ceremony’, their forthcoming debut album, due for release in the summer of 2024 under So Recordings. This will be accompanied by a short film documenting the creation of the album called ‘Come The Ringing Bell’.
SHORTLIST 2025
The Joy Hotel
— Ceremony
- Label: SO Recordings
- Released: 19 July 2024




















