Back in November, indie rock band Mamalarky released their self-titled debut LP on Fire Talk Records. The Atlanta (via LA and Austin) outfit ply a distinctive brand of weird and joyful technicolor indie rock, something the record took great delight holding aloft with pride. Taking the lush textures of classic rock and distorting them into a variety of guises, the songs were rich but rough around the edges in the way rock should be, maintaining the immediacy of a live set while exploring and inventing more cerebral spaces.
This month Mamalarky return with a new double single, Meadow / Moss, and this balance between thought and feeling is prominent once more. The screwball strangeness of the songs has an intuitive inventiveness, though it doesn’t take much looking to find deeper themes and meaning. The more introspective of the two, ‘Moss’ finds solace in the natural world, the balm of the simple fact of being surrounded by non-human lifeforms.
Also concerned with nature, although much peppier in nature with it’s staccato guitars and eccentric flourishes, ‘Meadow’ fizzes with eagerness and discovery. “‘Meadow’ is a spark of excitement at finding a less travelled path on my daily route that opened out onto a beautiful stream with singing frogs,” singer/guitarist Livvy Bennett explains.
The shared thematic content is no coincidence. Both songs were written outdoors during a period of separation and possess the bubbling sense of wonder found when you take the time to notice the smallest details. “Monotony is an illusion, or at least it’s a very tired way to look at things,” says Bennett:
Nature always has something new to offer when we slow down enough to absorb it—isolation made me appreciate and deepen this relationship significantly. I realized I’m never actually alone when I’m out under some trees.
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Check out the video below, directed by Ashley Kron, shot by Nico Romero and coloured/edited by Nour Oubeid.
Meadow / Moss is out now via Fire Talk Records and you can get it from the Mamalarky Bandcamp page.