JOYFULTALK is the brainchild of composer, producer, arranger, instrument builder, multi-instrumentalist and award winning multimedia artist Jay Crocker. Since relocating to the maritimes over a decade ago. Crocker has been broadening the scope and pace of his visual, sculptural and video work in tandem with his musical exploration.

JOYFULTALK creates instrumental compositions that straddle analog and electronic sound explorations in uniquely inventive ways. Guided by graphic scores, handmade kinetic sculpture, Guitar synthesizers and junked/recuperated. Crocker delicately weaves between human interaction and machine clockworks.

As a multimedia and visual artist working under his own name, Jay Crocker exhibited the award-winning BIBELOT (a hand built kinetic sculpture of sixteen ceiling-mounted mechanical ‘music boxes’) across the Maritime provinces (Eastern Canada), culminating in an exhibition at the prestigious Phi Centre in Montreal in 2019.

His monumental 5’x10’ graphic score for A Separation Of Being, the latest composition of his Planetary Music System, was acquired by the Nova Scotia Art Bank that same year. Recently, he unveiled an interactive laser installation called Last Life On Earth, as part of Tatafest Music & Art Festival in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.

Crocker’s musical work has received critical acclaim from The New York Times, The Wire, Uncut, The Quietus, The Globe And Mail, and the BBC. In recent years he has been profiled in MusicWorks, Clot Magazine and at KEXP. Crocker has amassed a substantial production resume, including Ghostkeeper’s Polaris-nominated self-titled album (Flemish Eye Records, 2010) and Jon Mckiel’s internationally acclaimed albums Bobby Joe Hope and HEX (You’ve Changed Records).

Crocker's intention is to create pieces of music and art that mimic life on a moment-to-moment time-lapse. Meditations of unsynchronized behaviours that blend to achieve tandem relationships within our physical and digital environments. He creates synthesized improvised interactions of sound designed to create new interpretations of memory and feelings, while reinterpreting borderlines to create boundless, beautiful and stimulating sonic worlds that defy convention.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com

Bandcamp: https://joyfultalk.bandcamp.com

Jay Crocker is the Official 2026 Sappyfest Musical Artist-in-Residence. We would like to acknowledge the support of the New Brunswick Arts Board in the Artist-in-Residence program.