High in the clouds above the Pacific, living surreptitiously in the hidden hills of Topanga Canyon, exists the art-pop ensemble Hello Forever. Their residence and creative clubhouse, which they found on Craigslist, sits on the former site of an abandoned 1960s nudist commune and serves as the seven-piece group’s musical and spiritual center. Here, singer-songwriter and guitarist Samuel Joseph gathers his current half-dozen other collaborators—Molly Pease, Andy Jimenez, Jaron Crespi, Joey Briggs, Gabe Stout and Anand Darsie—to work on their ever-expanding repertoire. While home, they maintain a five-days-a-week rehearsal schedule and a variety of friendly faces have been known to pop by. Joseph even opened his home to friends and fans for a recent December performance. If it seems at all eccentric, then Joseph thinks that’s just fine. “I like the word because, to me, it means strange in a beautiful way,” Joseph says. “I identify with that very playfully.” Living remotely is nothing new for Joseph; it enables him to surrender, let go, get out of the way, and say yes, he says, to an intuitive and sacred relationship he feels with music. Hello Forever’s debut album, Whatever It Is, dropped in late January and comes as the result of 200 days of tireless recording in bedrooms and borrowed studios in nearby Santa Monica and rural Castaic. (Throughout the process, Joseph often slept under the console between 16-hour shifts.) The record follows two videos issued in late 2019 and displays a heady combination of doo-wop, jazz, freak-folk, skiffle, glam, psych, boom-bap and R&B influences. Certainly, Joseph will draw comparison to Brian Wilson, and his “pocket symphony” arrangements, yet he also cites hip-hop groups BROCKHAMPTON and Odd Future as critical inspirations. “[Calling it a] collective honors everyone’s distinct agency and contributions— not only to our collaborative process, but to the art that they make on their own,” Joseph says. “We’re on a mission to help people.”