After being dropped by Sony, he recorded two albums for the UK independent record label Grapevine: "Full Colour Black and White" and "Tangled Souls". His first release under Grapevine featured the fourth track "Ballad of Richard Lewis", a homage to the Welsh labourer and hero better known as Dic Penderyn, who was sentenced to death after leading the Merthyr Rising of 1831. The song would be later included in further albums (including the "Thunder and Rainbows" compilation, the "Don't Talk About Love" live album, and "Evolved", as a re-recording in a different style) as "Dic Penderyn". In 1999, Joseph established his own label, Pipe Records, citing "creative freedom" and "complete control" as the main advantages granted him that were not possible working under other labels. Drawing from possible past experiences with Sony, Joseph explains, "I'm not dependent on Robbie Williams' diary or Madonna's film schedule for when [my songs] get released." Joseph began publishing work under a new medium, a news magazine entitled "The Passport Queue", the name of which is taken from a line in the song "Everything in Heaven". Subscribers of the magazine receive free annual CDs of rare recordings. In his first release under Pipe Records, "Far From Silent", Joseph explored the complications of fame and fortune, in the second track "Celebrity". The eighth track, entitled "The Good in Me is Dead", written in the perspective of a Kosovo refugee in light of the Balkan atrocities, reflects Joseph's penchant for writing about social tragedies and injustice. "The prime motive in the instant that I pick up the guitar is a selfish one," Joseph says. "It's because I need to deal with the world. I'm in the world and it's horrible, and what can I do? I'm just getting this stuff out of my system as it were." Between "Far From Silent" and his next LP, Joseph came out with several works, the first of which was a 2000 limited edition EP, "The Shirley Sessions", which he worked on primarily during a tour with Shirley Bassey gone awry. The next year, in 2001, Joseph compiled a two-disc best-of album entitled "Thunder and Rainbows – The Best We Could Find" comprising 31 of his previous favourites and two new songs. Following his first best-of compilation, he came out with his second live album, two volumes of recordings under the title "Don't Talk About Love 1992 – 2002".