Swedish Alternative Slowrock/Melancholic Folk duo Moon Mother has premiered the first single “It Comes with Shadows,” taken from their upcoming new album “Meadowlands.” Exclusive premiere on Progressive Rock Journal, featuring a special Q&A with the band.
Stream “It Comes with Shadows” exclusively via the YouTube player below:
— Excluisve Q&A with the band —
Moon Mother’s music blends melancholic Folk, alternative slowrock, and “månrock” atmospheres. With your upcoming album “Meadowlands,” how did your creative approach evolve from your first album to this new chapter, both musically and thematically?
“I think the music evolved naturally after we had a chance to be out and play the songs from the first album. Our first album was made on a very tight time frame and we hadn’t been playing together for a long time when we did it so the songs and sound were quite widespread on it but getting out there and playing those songs helped us explore, evolve but also reconnect musically with eachother.
This new album feels both more close to what Moon Mother was in the early days and what it has become today and we felt that we wanted to take our time this time but still follow a deadline of some sort.
The seed that started the whole album was the phrase “being a witness”. In the beginning of the process we had all kinds of ideas about how things was suppoused to be but as we entered November last year we kind of got into a flow where the whole thing just violently came pouring through us. This is the type of creativity we both live for so we just kind of took the backseat and let the music work us.
When the songs were there and we could see the album as a whole it kind of named itself and started to speak it’s true meaning and depth to us, it still does.“
The lyrics and mood of “It Comes With Shadows” explore grief, trauma, and resilience. How do you balance such personal, heavy themes with the musical landscapes you create, ensuring listeners are both moved and immersed?
“Oh how could I not do it? These songs and words is what has gotten me through something I didn’t think I would survive for a long time and I would just simply die if I didn’t have this place. It’s by creating the world that is Moon Mother that I have been able to keep going. By creating a place for my truth to excist without a mask and to plant my seeds for the garden of tomorrow by creating an adventure worth staying around for. It’s very special to share that intimate world with other humans. It makes me feel strong by being vulnerable.
The music always feels like it has a dark undertone because it stems from a place of pain and darkness but at the same time it’s an act of reaching for the light, I really feel that the musical landscapes of Moon Mother truly embodies that.
I write these songs for me and I think that once they are shared with others they should have the freedom of becoming what the listener feels through them, whatever that is. I want people to come into the song and experience it and let the song move whatever it moves in them.“
You collaborated with drummer Robert Hall and mixed/mastered with Hans Olsson, expanding your home-produced process. How did these collaborations influence the sonic depth and emotional impact of “Meadowlands,” and what was key to preserving Moon Mother’s signature voice?
“We contaced Rob and asked if he wanted to put drums and percussion on the album because we wanted the heartbeat to be there on this one since our first album had no drums at all.
He was up for it so we spent 2 days together and the album was quite finnished when we recorded the drums but he did an excellent job of just following our flow and entering the world that was already there with respect and feeling. It was a good collaboration and we’re so happy we reached out to him, he had a lot of good ideas that really took it to the next level!
Then we didn’t really have a plan about who we should reach out for to mix it at first. We just wanted it to be someone who would be up to preserve the sound and atmosphere that we already had created by ourselves but take it further, make it more massive and do it good.
Previously the mixing-process has been quite stressing, dealing with people/producers who wanted to do their own thing, changing the sound of a song completely so much that it aches in your soul lol. We just knew that we didn’t want the process to be like that ever again.
After some researching we found Hans and got a feeling that he would really be able to take this where we wanted it so we reached out to him.
We had a meeting and got a good feeling so we decided to follow it and we are so glad we did because we didn’t just get a worldclass sounding album we also realized that this whole process can be fun from start to finnish. We were able to be a part of the whole process and spent a couple of days together with Hans in Svenska Grammofonstudion where he works throughout the summer.
He did a great job of not cleaning it up too much, keeping the music raw, a bit dirty, making it huge, deep and majestic and also came with a lot of good ideas that just put the cherry on top of it all. We felt like he both respected the music and us as humans.
It was easy and fun working with him and even if the album and music comes from a bottomless sadness it felt safe to invite him into it all. So glad that it all happened the way it did!“
The first etheral and gloomy single “It comes with Shadows” is a powerful dance between hope and despair and it’s set to be released on October 10th.
Moon Mother is the voice that’s echoing in the darkness of a starless night to remind you about the coming morning. With an architecture made out of earthy alternative slowrock and melancholic Atmospheric Folk with a nordic vibe the duo from Sweden is always evolving as they’re paving out their way by dancing to the beat of their own drum while building the world around their musical universe with deep artistic integrity and vision.
— Chapter II of the Moon Mother Saga begins this October —
Since the release of their first album in 2023 the duo has played frequently around Sweden and many who have seen them live agree that they are witnessing the beginning of something truly special. With a spellbinding force and soulful performance they break peoples hearts just to put them back together again and they leave a strong imprint on those who cross their path.
Coming from different roots musically there is something unique happening when the down to earth folk and soul-stirring Psychedelic landscapes that has a spirit similar to Pink Floyd mixed with the old school, 90’s vibing Grunge attitude of Pats guitar playing meets Sara‘s poetry, thought provoking storytelling and wild melodies.
The music is never put into a box but rather experimented with which becomes a genre bending symphony with a Dark and Doom-laden undertone that they are calling “månrock“. A world of its own where darkness, grief and tragedy are being weaved into glimpses of light and where the expression of the song dances boldly at its core.
Sara’s voice has a depth and authentic presence to it that reaches into your soul and demands your attention.
With a sensitivity and connection to her vivid inner world and to the world around her she connects to the listener through layers of feelings and experience.
There is a wise tone and a classic humbleness to her singing, a flow of mystery and prose with a melancholic nuance of Nick Cave-like melodrama combined with something very raw and primal that doesn’t fail to evoke bone deep emotions.
Someone said that “It’s like Leonard Cohen and Enya are singing a duet with the blackbirds at the blue hour on a desolate meadow somewhere in a dream” and that’s truly the vibe and spirit of Moon Mother. Sara doesn’t hide away from the dark night or from life’s suffering, she dives right into it as she bravely shares her story and deepest secrets straight from the fires to reclaim her place as a woman in this world.
Their upcoming album and the second chapter of The Moon Mother Saga is a powerful development of their previous released works. They have recorded and self-produced the album once again in their home but this time they collaborated with the drummer Robert Hall who gave it all a heartbeat. Then they teamed up with Hans Olsson at Svenska Grammofonstudion who put the cherry on the cake of it all with a majestic mix and master. The final work is a massive, hauntingly beautiful and dark journey through the spiral of life, the decay and rot of autumn, the heavy death of winter and the glimmering rays of the first sunrise of spring. An enchanted dance between hope and despair that’s hiding in the holes of grief, deep isolation, surviving sexual abuse, addiction and intergenerational trauma but still finding ways to hold on and keep fighting.
Those who enter will transcend into the holy world of Meadowlands, the place outside, the place within.
“The whole album started as a nudge in September of 2024 as I had felt haunted by the phrase “being a witness” for some time. I knew it was an album coming. By the time we got to November all the human interactions and ego ideas about it all had left the building and the work very violently just came flowing. That is when you take the back seat and just let the magic work you. This first single “It comes with Shadows” marked that transition and was the first song that made it to the album, it had to be the first single to release into the world as the beginning of this journey too.” — Sara Mehner (vocalist & composer)