Mousey – The Dreams Of Our Mothers’ Mothers! (Winegum) 13th Floor Album Review

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The dictionary says someone mousy is ‘shy, timid, quiet’. But, as this Mousey (Sarena Close) has revealed, there’s more to the name. It references the girl in the opening lines of  Bowie’s Life on Mars. And here in her third long-player, Dreams of Our Mothers’ Mothers!  there are ch-ch-ch- changes for one of the most interesting songwriters from Otautahi /Christchurch.

MouseyIt’s an intriguingly different collection: sonic explorations of a wide palette of emotion, charting her journey confronting identity, parenting and – at times fraught – family dynamics over recent years.

Different though this collection is, there are threads of continuity to her 2019 debut, Lemon Law, with its retro- yearning and register-sliding vocals. Again, we have endearingly lo-fi production, astonishing vocals, and songs full of often fraught feelings.

Opening song, Die On That Hill, begins with a big haunting sound and almost spoken vocals (‘are we as noble as we like to believe’) and ends with a cacophony of discordant sounds. Pat Metheny’s Forward March or the end of the Beatles’ A Day In The Life come to mind. Orchestrated chaos evoking conflicted emotions. A few listens later and I’m no closer to knowing what ‘that hill’ is and who’s doing the dying but it matters not. It’s the feeling of the song that is potent and persuasive.

Home Alone begins with lo-fi echo-y percussive beats over Mousey’s chanted lyric. ‘would you stab me if you saw me’?  and ‘I want to be free of it’. Domestic discord and entrapment. The hugeness of Mousey’s voice rolls in, wave after wave, while there are whacks of an improvised drum in the background. Three words come to mind: evocative, ominous, engaging.

More percussive rhythms feature on Dog Park and they are more persistent this time, perhaps evoking a heartbeat or amplified tick of a watch, who knows? All I know is that it grows on me and, from another era calls to mind Joni Mitchell’s astonishing Jungle Line.  The repeated words ‘if anything happens to him’ suggests the protective parenting impulse enveloping the songwriter in her parallel career as a new mother.

Centre-album there’s the just-over-a-minute Island of Hope Part 1, a little oasis of gentleness. A purity of voice over soft guitar strums. A shard of memory maybe; an immersive escape from the maelstrom of current conflicted feelings.

Island of Hope Part 2 has the singer asking ‘will you still think of me when we’re back home?’, and I love swimming’. Childhood memory? We all know that feeling, but who more so, perhaps, than within the sleep-deprived blur of new parenthood? And the abrupt end to the song is more than stylistic; it suggests the suddenness of return, which has her vocals down a register and accompanied by thumping base and drum.

 Opener is a mood piece, carried along by a deliberate bassline. A stunning evocation of a time and place. Hints of Moby or Radiohead. The enigmatically named IDWGBTY is another breathily sung chantlike piece with a refrain of ‘I don’t want to go back to you’ over a piano line. Exquisite, delicate and slightly disturbing. Last up, E.S., references ‘cut the cords and start anew’. An invocation to round out the album over upwelling bubbling sounds. Hope springs in this season of spring.

These songs have the intimacy and self-revelation of Sufjan Stevens meeting the mystery and intrigue of PJ Harvey. But they are altogether something different, local and fresh.  A stunning release that will be high on my list of the year’s best kiwi albums. Full of fascinating sounds and songs that are sufficiently nuanced to keep offering little shafts of light, illuminating the songwriter’s world.

Robin Kearns

The Dreams of Our Mothers’ Mothers is out today via Winegum Records / Concord Publishing

Click here to watch the 13th Floor MusicTAlk interview with Mousey.

To celebrate the album’s release, Mousey will embark on a nationwide tour this November, bringing her deeply personal and evocative music to audiences across Aotearoa. Fans can look forward to live performances of both new tracks and favourites from her previous records.

Tour Dates:

  • Christchurch: Darkroom, November 16th

  • Wellington: Moon, November 22nd

  • Auckland: Neck of the Woods, November 23rd

Special guest Goodwill will join Mousey on this tour, promising an unforgettable live experience. Click here for tickets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Kearns
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