Maud the moth – aka Spanish-born and Scotland-based pianist, singer and songwriter Amaya Lopez-Carromero (healthyliving) – has shared the new single and video, “Despeñaperros.” The track is taken from her forthcoming full-length, The Distaff (partially funded by Creative Scotland), set for release 21st February 2025, via the labels The Larvarium (digital +CD), La Rubia Producciones (vinyl), and Woodford Halse/Fenny Compton (tape cassette). Check out the new video and more below.
Stream “Despeñaperros” here: https://lnkfi.re/maudthemoth_despenaperros
Pre-order The Distaff here: https://maudthemoth.bandcamp.com/album/the-distaff
Reflecting on the song’s inspiration, Maud the moth shares:
““Despeñaperros” is one of the cornerstones of The Distaff’s universe. A canyon and natural reserve with dramatic geology and very violent historical background, the Despeñaperros Pass is a gateway into the wilderness. Its name, which can be translated as ‘where dogs are thrown off the cliff,’ has unclear origins and adds to the lore and mystery shrouding this area in the Spanish collective consciousness. Growing up in an environment where hunting and animal cruelty were commonplace and artistic sensitivities often ridiculed, Despeñaperros unfolded in my imagination, transcending its real physical location, and reforming as a quasi-mythical location for the sacrifice of those perceived as weak, different, misunderstood or simply challenging tradition.”
Revisit the haunting underwater video for the first single, “Siphonophores,” (co-directed by Amaya and filmmaker/visual artist Elena Brea, known for her fascination with macro videography) here: https://youtu.be/kBrvkj7Loy4
Amaya has long used the mantle of Maud the moth as an alter-ego, a séance-like conduit to explore themes of rootlessness, identity and trauma. The upcoming fourth full-length, The Distaff, in particular refers to the stick or spindle onto which wool or flax is wound for spinning, and an object which has historically been used across multiple cultures as a symbol wielded by the “virtuous woman”, an authoritarian ideal around which much of the trauma surrounding the feminine coalesces. The album takes the form of a sort of self-reflective and surreal autobiography. It was in part inspired by the poem of the same name written by the Greek poet Erinna, as she mourns her friend’s loss of individuality and agency in exchange for marriage — and therefore safety and acceptance in the eyes of society.
The album exists in an ethereal but violent world of aesthetic overlaps where time stands still and fictional and reimagined folk sits at the table with Maud the moth’s usual sonic menagerie. It is the result of a lifetime of obsession with sound and music, where glimpses of musical genre offer insight into Amaya’s artistic interests and her participation in the underground European scene for many years, in bands such as healthyliving. Heavier, darker, and more exposed than any of her previous works it features some highly accomplished artists, such as Seb Rochford (Patti Smith, Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet, Pulled by magnets) on drums, Alison Chesley (Helen Money) on cello, Fay Guiffo on violin and Scott McLean (Ashenspire, healthyliving, Falloch) on guitar, saxophone and synthesiser.
Written and arranged by Amaya, with some contributions in the later role from the aforementioned collaborators, the album presents nine tracks originally written entirely on acoustic piano as accompanied voice pieces, in pure singer-songwriter fashion. The album was co-produced and recorded by Scott and Amaya in different studios across the UK between January and July of 2024, in a process that started shortly after the 2020 pandemic and finished alongside the album recordings in a detailed, organic and at times obsessive process aimed primarily at capturing the natural dynamics and expression of free performance. The Distaff was mixed in its entirety by Scott and mastered at Abbey Road by Alex Wharton (Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine, Aurora, Kathryn Joseph)
Despite being born of a very personal point of view, the album lacks a specific narrator and was conceived almost as a sonic trousseau, where the needle point, silks and other family heirlooms have been swapped for out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye memories of rural Spain by the vineyards, family disputes, old tales of wartime pains, generational breaches and finally the conflict of migration and estrangement. The songs paint dystopian pastoral scenes which evolve throughout the span of one fictional day outside of time and coherent locations and where imagination (often the only account surviving from traumatic events and gaslighting) has become indistinguishable from fact. The Distaff attempts to acknowledge past trauma, comprehend and process some of the more difficult aspects which have contributed to our darker self and offer closure and solace through creative catharsis.
The Distaff tracklisting:
01 Canto de enramada
02 A temple by the river
03 Exuviae
04 Burial of the patriarchs
05 Siphonophores [Music Video | Audio]
06 Despeñaperros [Music Video | Audio]
07 O rubor
08 Fiat lux
09 Kwisatz Haderach
Maud the moth is set to perform at ArcTanGent in Somerset, UK, this August.
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