Writing songs that give listeners such feelings of being known and seen has been a gift Johnston has expressed since his 2016 debut. On I’ll Forget 17, Johnston chronicled the end of his teenage era, the still-fresh feelings of youth and all of the acute immediacy of its emotions. His latest release, Life on the Edge of You, out on PBWH, finds Johnston in his mid-20s and on the precipice of adulthood in all its nascent fits and spurts, moments of growth and regression, thoughtless impulses and newfound control. On his own again after moving back in with his parents in Wellington, New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic—not unlike many young adults his age—Johnston is taking stock of his life: the relationships that may be, the periods of adjustment, the person he is and the person he hopes to become.
