Josh Hwang’s CASTLEBEAT project returns with its ever-reliable dreampop sound and a new jangly single, Stay With Me, out now via Spirit Goth Records. This is the latest preview of his forthcoming album, CASTLEBEAT II, arriving June 26th, 2026.
Built around bright, jangly Stratocaster lines and a loose slacker-rock groove, Stay With Me is an upbeat track that still carries the quietly melancholic feeling Hwang does best.
As Hwang puts it: "Stay With Me is an upbeat, home-recorded dream-pop single built around jangly Stratocaster lines and a laid-back slacker-rock feel. Lyrically it's about wanting someone to stick around when you can feel things starting to slip. Bright guitars, relaxed groove, and a hook that lands quickly."
In keeping with his usual creative processes, Hwang wrote, recorded, and produced everything himself, as the lo-fi and DIY mindset has always been crucial to the project. A big change this time around was handing mixing and mastering duties to Brian Fisher, a decision Hwang admits was difficult. "The hardest part was trusting that handoff and not endlessly tweaking. But once I let that happen it actually made the album stronger."
"This album is a 10-year anniversary ode to my 2016 debut," Hwang explains. "Some of the songs started as ideas from that era that I never finished at the time. Other songs were written more recently, but I intentionally limited myself to the kinds of sounds and choices I would've made back then — just with a more dialed-in approach I've developed over the years."
ZR