Music Industry News

After months of high anticipation, artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Luna Shadows has released her outstanding new LP, bathwater, out today. On the record is the deeply personal title track and focus single, ‘bathwater’.

Interwoven throughout the LP are influences derived from 70s folk/rock, 90s grunge and 2000s indie-pop; with moments of sparse electronic production, delicate soundscapes, massive guitars, organic instrumentation. Lyrically, the LP meditates of memory, love, loss and grief, with bursts of self-reflection from contrasting emotional vantage points.

“There’s ‘witches’ brew’ when I’m low, ‘heroine’ when I’m high, ‘little rituals’ when I’m longing, ‘nudes’ when I’m losing, ‘apocalypse love song’ when I’m accepting,” explains Shadows. “The album takes a journey through a cycle of emotions, offering permission to feel it all.”

Co-produced with longstanding friend and collaborator Bradley Hale (Now Now), bathwater was mixed by acclaimed grammy-award winning engineer Beatriz Artola (NYC) and mastered by Jett Galindo (LA). Additional production/engineering from Thomas Powers (The Naked & Famous), “who I especially consulted for guitar tones throughout the process.”

“I made it my mission to write every single word for this record on my own, which I am proud to say I accomplished,” says Shadows. “I’ve enjoyed collaborating with many incredibly talented writers in the past, but this project felt so personal, and it was important for me to have total quiet in my mind. This album also marks a tonal shift from my first LP Digital Pacific, which was more electronic. I think of the first record like a sharp JPEG – glittering and pixelated – and bathwater like a slowly developing Polaroid, an image in danger of fading over time.”

The LP’s focus track, ‘bathwater’, is the centerpiece of the album: “the balancing point on which everything else rests.” Inspired by and dedicated to her Mother, it touches on anticipatory grief, childhood memories; lyrically encompassing a whole lifetime.

“I was separated from my Mother during the pandemic, after she survived breast cancer just a few months prior,” reflects Shadows. “They say that when grief strikes, your life flashes before you, so I wanted the coda ending of this song to be a sonic representation of that feeling. The sound design is intended to mimic memory – miscellaneous foley sounds (atmospheric drones, voicemails, car sounds, etc.) weave in and glitch out to symbolize a musical congregation of memories, fluttering and departing as quickly as they appear.”

The LP completes the bigger picture Shadows has been working towards over recent months, releasing a string of singles in the lead up; all of which have received local support from the likes of NZ Herald, The Listener, RNZ, ZM, Rolling Stone AU/NZ, Juice TV, Radio One, The Most FM, The 13th Floor and more.

Luna Shadows writes and produces out of her bedroom in LA; each song is a layered and thoughtful production, and wholly her own. Emerging in 2016, Billboard called her debut “Some of the most refreshingly soulful and haunting indie pop to come out this year.” She rapidly captured the attention of the alternative scene with early single ‘Hallelujah California’, which rose to #8 on Spotify’s US Viral Chart, and her catalog has since independently achieved 50 million streams across platforms. Shadows’ is also known for her co-production work and touring with the award-winning NZ band The Naked And Famous.

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Photo credit: Larsen Sotelo