THE BIG MOON RELEASE NEW ALBUM ‘WALKING LIKE WE DO’

Recorded early 2019, in three and a half weeks – compared to the 12 days their 2017 debut Love In The 4th Dimension took – Walking Like We Do represents a giant leap forward for The Big Moon. “Before we were more of a plug-in and play kind of a band, but these songs need a bit more,” lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Juliette Jackson explains. Frequently piano and keyboard-led rather than being reliant on grungey guitars, and rich in tight-knit vocal harmonies and rolling grooves, it’s a cinematic but innately hook-laden set that truly expands the band’s range.

Citing Vampire Weekend, Solange, James Blake and Frank Ocean as reference points, the band approached producer Ben Allen, whose diverse work with Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley and Bombay Bicycle Club made him the perfect fit for the project. After an introductory Skype chat, the band travelled to his studio in Atlanta, Georgia.

This renewed ambition is reflected in Jackson’s choice of subject matter too, which largely finds her swapping straightforward love songs for more thorny subjects. Driven by sombre piano trills, ‘Dog Eat Dog’ meditates on societal injustice, and was inspired by the Grenfell tragedy. ‘Barcelona’ examines the inevitable state of flux caused by growing older, while ‘It’s Easy Then’ discusses the sense of impending doom that goes hand in hand with being a citizen of the world in 2019. Extending that theme further, lead single ‘Your Light’ – which has received high rotation airplay on triple j – is about finding solace in relationships during chaotic times, finding Jackson as wry as ever in couplets like, “Maybe it’s an end cause this don’t feel like a start / But every generation probably thought they were the last.”

“I don’t want to use the word empowerment,” bassist Celia Archer grimaces, “But there are definitely songs that offer some sort of hope. There’s a lyric in ‘A Hundred Ways To Land’: “We don’t know where we’re going / But we’re walking like we do.” That sums up a lot of what Juliette was saying, in that there’s a lot going on, and we’re all figuring it out, but it’s better to move confidently forward in the face of all of this shit than just do nothing.”

“It all feels relentless,” Jackson agrees. “I mean, everyone is trying to process it. We made these songs to provide listeners with some release. And for us too. It took us a while to realise we could do anything on this album, and feel confident with our own voices. But I realised that there is strength in our character, in our lyrics, and in the decisions we make.”