Madeleine Mosse and Matt Bauer first met at a show in France, where London-based Mosse was fronting her band Rum Tum Tiddles and was Bauer playing fiddle for Alela Diane. Bauer would go on to produce Rum Tum Tiddles’ 2021 record It Is a Story, and the pair soon began swapping ideas and demos. A new collaboration was born, one which looked to develop and evolve the folk underpinnings of each artist’s background and incorporate the cinematic richness of Bauer’s work as Memory Spells.
After a bewitching version of INXS’s ‘Don’t Change’, Madeleine Mosse & Matt Bauer turned their attention to a new EP to be released later this year. Lead single ‘A Secret Road’ gives an indication of the direction they are headed. Fans of records like The Island Moved in the Storm will recognise the delicate and earnest opening, the track unfurling with a tentative curiosity that grows increasingly bold as Mosse’s vocals emerge. And in the second half Bauer’s newly vivid sensibilities lift the sound into something deeper. Capturing not only a fondness for the natural world but the mystery that lies at its heart too.
So despite the undoubted longing which colours the song, ‘A Secret Road’ is far from heartbroken. A picture of wistfulness with the hope still intact. “Don’t know where I’ll lay my head / But I’m happy in my restlessness,” Mosse sings. “Running wild, roaming free.” This is a track which looks to repurpose the excess energy of unease. To find autonomy and joy within the movement of wandering, all the while looking for that one place to which to return and feel at peace.
Around the world
And back again
Everywhere I’ve ever been
Stars they guide me where to go
A secret road that takes me home
Take me home
A Secret Road