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Mondo Cozmo on his latest album, 'It's PRINCIPLE!'

courtesy of the artist

Last time World Cafe spoke with Josh Ostrander, who performs as Mondo Cozmo, he was recounting how he accidentally put his hand through a plate glass window. This time, things are definitely sunnier for the indie rock musician who had a breakout hit on his band's debut, 2017's "Shine."

His new album, It's PRINCIPLE!, arrives filled with anthemic rock songs, part of his mission to make the most cohesive album possible. As Ostrander points out in today's chat, a lot of that was thanks to the motivation of producer Mark Rankin, who has the nicest way of saying something isn't good.

Find out what that expression is, and why the record also serves as a loving farewell to Josh's best friend. Plus, Mondo Cozmo performs live.

Set List

  • "Wild Horses"
  • "It's PRINCIPLE!"
  • "Angels"
  • "New Salvation"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).