Josh Hill makes music as The Hillside Project - piano-led, orchestrally minded, and harder to describe in a noisy pub than he'd like. Based near London, he is a composer, pianist and drummer whose rhythmic and harmonic sensibilities are as central to the work as the writing itself.
Classically trained, he gravitated early towards composition and recording, drawn to the long, patient work of building something from the inside out rather than the immediacy of performance. For years he worked across collaborative settings - co-founding a dance company that toured the UK and Europe, scoring short films that travelled the international festival circuit - before turning his focus to the work he now makes under The Hillside Project name.
His first two albums - Ocellus (2021), written and recorded in three days in a barn during a storm; and The Available Light (2023), launched live to a packed venue in London - earned plays on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, NTS and KEXP, an album-of-the-week on Scala Radio, and over a million streams on Spotify. The work sits somewhere in the orbit of Ólafur Arnalds and Steve Reich, with a restless production sensibility that owes as much to pop and jazz as to anyone in contemporary classical music.
His third album, Elsewhere, is his most collaborative and ambitious to date. Scored for piano, string sextet, flugelhorn, trombone, drums, double bass, soprano and synth, every note was played by a human being in a room - which, in 2026, turns out to be a position worth stating plainly.
portraits by Heather Chuter
SHEET MUSIC
A selection of high quality digital downloads of Hillside Project piano pieces to play - click on the image to purchase…
from the EP ‘Dizygotic’, released 2023
D flat major, 3 pages
from the EP ‘Dizygotic’, released 2023
E flat major, 3 pages
released 2022
D flat major, 3 pages
from the EP ‘88 Short Stories, Volume 2’, released 2019
D flat major, 4 pages
released 2018
B flat major, 5 pages
WRITINGS
Video
A selection of Hillside Project music videos, performances, TV and film work
Gentle Hum is a Spotify playlist of beautiful, quiet, eclectic music that has inspired and moved The Hillside Project…
Ranging from electronic to jazz to classical to folk and everything in between, this is music that I have loved forever or else recently discovered, all of which has influenced or affected me or my work in some way.
The playlist is also available on Apple Music here.
Please do listen and follow - I’ll be updating it regularly…
ARTWORK CREDITS
THE AVAILABLE LIGHT - REWORKS
Artwork - SnowSkull
THE AVAILABLE LIGHT - LIVE AT ST MATTHIAS
Artwork - SnowSkull
DIZYGOTIC EP
Artwork - SnowSkull
THE AVAILABLE LIGHT
Artwork - SnowSkull
DIZYGOTIC II
Artwork - SnowSkull
SPARKLER DIMS
Artwork - SnowSkull
88 SHORT STORIES, VOLUME 3
Photography - Heather Chuter
TUMULT AND GRACE
Photography - Heather Chuter
THISTLEDOWN
Photography - Heather Chuter
WITH A SWOOP AND A DART
Photography - Heather Chuter
OCELLUS
Design - Art by Vandelay
HEY NOW
Photography - Heather Chuter
“This was a capture on my phone while exploring in the countryside with my children during the 2020 lockdown. We were all seeking a bit of release at that time and this reflection presented itself”
Design - David Todman
UNDONE, REMADE
Photography - Heather Chuter
“This is a study and exploration of the expressions of a tiny porcelain doll who was deeply ingrained in my childhood and watched me learn the piano”
Design - David Todman
A WATCH OF NIGHTINGALES
Photography - Catherine Tillmann
“Here’s a little bit of the weather and winds of that photo: it was taken almost 40 years ago at Bayfield cliff edge overlooking Lake Huron. Every night the sun puts on a show for all of us; in this photo, I thought I would try to get a sense of the water reflecting its applause”
Design - David Todman
88 SHORT STORIES, VOLUME 2
Photography - Josh Hill
Design - David Todman
FLINDRIKIN DRIFT
Photography - Josh Hill
Design - David Todman
88 SHORT STORIES, VOLUME 1
Photography - Josh Hill
Design - David Todman
A CAUTIOUS FLOWERING
Photography - Jen Brent
Design - David Todman