Atwood Journal is happy to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a group of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There’s a lot unbelievable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to hear. By way of our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light-weight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options NoSo, James Smith, Billy Nomates, Brian Dunne, Glitterfox, and Mon Rovîa!
comply with EDITOR’S PICKS on Spotify
Tright here’s one thing about “Sugar” that grabs you by the hand and doesn’t let go. Each time I press play, I keep till the final be aware – pulled in by a glistening guitar line that sparkles like daylight on morning pavement, lifted larger by the heartbeat of tight drums and NoSo’s radiant, hovering voice. It’s the form of music that has a heartbeat of its personal – achingly intimate and irresistibly candy, with a refined sting that lingers lengthy after the final refrain fades.
In a field of energy
A mouse is just too loud
Transfer like a hiker,
Indebted to you now
Two years after their debut LP Keep Pleased with Me launched us to singer/songwriter Baek Hwong’s richly cinematic world of self-reckoning and coming-of-age vulnerability, NoSo returns with one thing larger, bolder, and fantastically assured. Launched in mid-Could, “Sugar” units the tone for the LA-based artist’s extremely anticipated sophomore album When Are You Leaving?, out October 10th through Partisan Data, and marks a robust step ahead – not simply musically, however emotionally.
“My first album principally comprised of daydreaming about what my life might be like if I embraced my identification,” Hwong says. Certainly, Keep Pleased with Me was an album of inner reckoning, reconciliation, and intense self-reflection. Its monitor “Parasites,” for instance, was initially composed previous to Hwong’s high surgical procedure in 2020, and in the end accomplished after they’d healed – written with their previous and current our bodies in thoughts. “Feeling Like a Lady These days” toed an oh-so-thin line “between empowerment and dysphoria,” as they candidly expressed on the time.
In distinction to their first report, there’s a self-assuredness permeating NoSo’s current music in addition to their emotional headspace. “This report is firmly rooted in actuality and particulars my enlightening and tumultuous experiences head on,” they share.
That grounding is in every single place in “Sugar.” Beneath its dreamy disco groove and gleaming pop exterior lies a uncooked reflection on compassion, boundaries, and the quiet toll of holding area for somebody who’s hurting. “‘Sugar’ is in regards to the delicate dance of interacting with unstable, unwell people,” Hwong explains. “It’s a mirrored image on these experiences, aiming to method them with sympathy as an alternative of anger. I’ve realized that that is the one means I can transfer ahead – by not feeding these recollections and giving them energy.”
Solely in silence
And I fell in your
Waning sugar kindness
And I fell in your
However you wanted to be touched
And I may inform your
Illness had sufficient
That maturity echoes within the music’s glistening refrain, residence to a few of its most haunting traces – “Solely in silence, and I fell in your waning sugar kindness… however you wanted to be touched, and I may inform your illness had sufficient.” There’s heat and put on in that chorus, but in addition conviction and readability; a reclaiming of energy by way of gentleness, moderately than retaliation.
If Keep Pleased with Me was NoSo letting us into their desires, When Are You Leaving? invitations us into their actuality – a brand new chapter of unfiltered self-expression, self-possession, and emotional depth, the place vulnerability meets resolve with refreshing vigor and sonic firepower. “Sugar” glows with unflinching empathy and unshakable energy, the sound of an artist totally of their component, pushing ahead with out compromise. It’s beautiful progress in movement – and if that is any indication, what’s coming subsequent will probably be much more luminous.
This music could also be layered with nuance, however ultimately, it’s as candy as it’s seductive. I’ve been making an attempt to chop again on sugar in my 30s, however NoSo’s making it actually troublesome. Contemplate me hooked.
Maintain the land above me,
carrot on a string
Name me the issue
However you wanted me
Solely in silence
And I fell in your
Waning sugar kindness
And I fell in your
However you wanted to be touched
And I may inform your
Illness had sufficient
“Dancing With You (Child)”
by James Smith
The first time I heard that opening guitar line – heat, slow-burning, and soaked in longing – I felt like I’d stepped right into a pale {photograph}. “Dancing with You (Child)” pulls you in immediately, wrapping reminiscence and melody into one thing wealthy, uncooked, and totally immersive. It’s bluesy and nostalgic, tender and turbulent. And James Smith, a person blessed with what have to be one of the frequent names in the whole Western Hemisphere, units himself unmistakably aside: His voice aches with uncooked emotion as he dwells within the shadows of what was, caught in a spell of craving he can’t fairly shake.
It was a love of a unique variety
Now loneliness is a good friend of mine
I’m wanting again on the summer season nights
When life felt so significantly better
Dancing with you child
Oh I simply can’t stop remembering
The way in which that you just transfer child
Again after we used to really feel
So alive
Really feel like I’m simply losing all my time
Not dancing with you child
Dancing with you child
Smith’s first launch since final 12 months’s critically acclaimed debut Widespread Folks, “Dancing with You (Child)” seems like each a continuation and a daring step ahead. “It’s a monitor I’ve sat on for a few years now,” Smith tells Atwood Journal. “I wrote it particularly a few time a few summers in the past, when my associate and I might dance across the kitchen with the radio on. It’s fairly on-the-nose lyrically! This monitor is a nostalgic look again on the ‘honeymoon interval’ and the way nothing actually issues if you first fall in love.”
That sentiment pulses by way of each lyric. “Stumbling round on the kitchen ground to our favorite music on the radio. No there was nothing that would break us when our heartbeats moved collectively.” Smith captures the glow of younger love in vivid element, balancing the frenzy of reminiscence with the ache of distance. “Oh I simply can’t stop remembering the way in which that you just transfer, child. Again after we used to really feel so alive.”
Stumbling round on the kitchen ground
To our favorite music on the radio
No there was nothing that would break us
When our heartbeats moved collectively
Now each time that I shut my eyes
I’m transported to that peace of thoughts
I hold ’em shut ’trigger I want that I
May keep proper right here perpetually
Musically, the music is a masterclass in restraint and heat. That lead guitar – clear and expressive – carves out an area someplace between Fleetwood Mac and John Mayer, two of Smith’s greatest influences (and, it simply so occurs, two of my favourite artists. Coincidence? I believe not). “I’d really say that Continuum and Rumours are each on my desert island discs haha!” he says. “Continuum is so completely recorded and was positively a reference for this report.”
Fittingly, the music was recorded reside in a single take at London’s legendary Konk Studios. “I didn’t actually have an method with the music initially – it kind of simply got here to me one morning while I used to be taking part in round on my guitar. Nevertheless, I believe when it got here to the recording course of,” Smith recollects. “I knew that I wished to supply the monitor in a correct studio (and never my little room in North London). So for this music and the remainder of my new album, I went and spent a while at Konk Studios – which is essentially the most magic place on Earth. It was based by the Kinks, and a few large, large information have been recorded there. ‘Dancing with You’ ended up being one reside take within the studio – and I’m tremendous, tremendous pleased with how old style and funky it was to report like that!”
Dancing with you child
Oh I simply can’t stop remembering
The way in which that you just transfer child
Again after we used to really feel
So alive
Really feel like I’m simply losing all my time
Not dancing with you child
Dancing with you child
Ten months on from Widespread Folks, Smith says this new music represents each a fast return and a artistic evolution. “Lower than a 12 months and I’m again within the sport already!” he laughs. “I completely love that report, however it seems like a unique me. I began writing these songs in my early twenties and I’m pushing 27 now. However it was an actual labour of affection and opened plenty of doorways for me. I used to be additionally in a position to tour Europe with that album firstly of the 12 months, and that was among the best experiences of my life, so I’m tremendous grateful for it.”
He continues, “I wished to make a fast ‘comeback’ as a result of I’ve SO a lot music. I’m always writing and producing songs, so it solely feels proper to place them out. And album 2 is a big step up from album 1.”
There’s an intimate ache to “Dancing with You (Child)” – the type that doesn’t shout to be heard, however makes you lean in. It’s light, but dramatic; grounded, but hovering. A love music and a lovesick music multi functional. “I’d say it could possibly exist as each,” Smith displays. “I’d hope that listeners can really feel the hassle that goes into creating actual music with actual musicians by way of actual studio gear! This isn’t no AI / Laptop computer music. It’s tremendous difficult, however clearly sounds actually easy. I’m making an attempt to do issues old style and be true to the singer/songwriters that got here earlier than me.”
With its timeless manufacturing, soul-stirring tone, and aching honesty, “Dancing with You (Child)” stands tall among the many 12 months’s greatest. And as Smith himself places it – with a wink wink, nudge nudge – “I’m an East Londoner with quite a bit about me – I write and produce and blend all my very own music, and I’m not cocky, however I reckon I’m gonna be f*ing large in a few years.”
Say no extra – I’m inclined to agree. “Dancing with You (Child)” is pretty much as good because it will get – and a month out from its launch, I’m nonetheless caught on that dreamy, radiantly lovely guitar line.
Dancing with you child
Oh I simply can’t stop remembering
The way in which that you just transfer child
Again after we used to really feel
So alive
Really feel like I’m simply losing all my time
Not dancing with you child
Dancing with you child
“Override”
by Billy Nomates
Tright here’s a fiery tenderness coursing by way of Billy Nomates’ “Override” – like somebody staring down the sting of collapse and selecting, defiantly, to maintain going. It’s gritty and glowing suddenly: An indie rock-Americana hybrid that hits with equal components grit, coronary heart, and hope. Whether or not she’s growling over guitar or floating above the haze, Bristol-based artist Tor Maries opts for endurance in a state of affairs that’s urging you to “do your self a favour and get out.”
First line that I wrote that you just don’t hear
Fell out of my throat then fell out my ears
Oh, I’m feeling one thing that I’ve by no means actually identified
From Viking to Roman, it’s older than the stones
And if I don’t have the braveness
Then I can’t simply let or not it’s
Why do al the vultures ship flowers to me?
I received’t make you cash and also you don’t pull the strings
Why don’t you get an actual job and cease taking from me
You like if it’ll go down
So you may say you made us
And do your self a favor
And get out
Each a rallying cry and a reckoning, “Override” is the fourth monitor / focus single off Metalhorse, Billy Nomates’ not too long ago launched third studio album and her first made in a correct studio with a full band. Out now through Invada Data, Metalhorse departs from the stark post-punk of previous information and leans into one thing extra expansive – a uncooked, rootsy, and emotionally complicated sound formed by grief, resilience, and hope. Maries describes it as an idea album a few crumbling funfair, the place “some rides are good to get on and a few rides aren’t.” That metaphor turns into a vessel for all times’s chaos – threat and reward, heartbreak and exhilaration – and thru all of it, a combat to maintain going.
“They inform you the honest received’t survive with out them. However you may override,” Maries insists – a line that lands like a mantra for reclaiming company in a world that tries to interrupt you down. And the music itself is all resistance: Fueled by galloping drums, jangly guitars, and her signature bristling supply, it balances uncooked vulnerability with an unmistakable internal fireplace.
“First line that I wrote that you just don’t hear / Fell out of my throat then fell out my ears… I received’t make you cash and also you don’t pull the strings / Why don’t you get an actual job and cease taking from me.” The lyrics bristle with frustration and readability – calling out exploitation, dismissal, and the vultures who circle if you’re already down.
Subsequent time that I discover you in my room
Searching for one thing that you could possibly use
I can’t actually hеlp you in case you bought no concepts
You would possibly simply should settlе
For getting previous and skinny
And that ain’t nothing shady
Yeah, all of us get what we give
When did all of the circus get so costly?
Properly I bought one thing going
And also you simply sit and grin
Inform all of them I’m loopy
And hope it sinks my ship
You like if it’ll go down
See upcoming pop reveals
Get tickets in your favourite artists
So you may say you made us
Oh, do your self a favor
And get out
Written and recorded three months after her father’s dying and following a private MS analysis, Metalhorse reckons with loss, insecurity, and perseverance in a world that hardly ever makes area for softness. It’s an album about survival – about holding pleasure in a single hand and grief within the different, and nonetheless discovering the energy to sing. “That was my security and safety on the earth,” Maries says of the bond she shared together with her father. Even through the hardest days, they may nonetheless speak about music.
On “Override,” she rises. There’s energy in her restraint, urgency in her breath. And whilst she reckons with a world that feels prefer it’s spiraling, she clings to what’s actual – intestine, grit, and a voice that refuses to be drowned out. The circus could also be costly, however Billy Nomates is priceless.
You like if it’ll go down
You simply love,
you’re keen on if it’ll go down
“Clams On line casino”
by Brian Dunne
Rright here’s one thing about your thirties that makes you pause and ask: Is it actually so unhealthy to need a good life? Brian Dunne’s “Clams On line casino” feels prefer it was written for that precise second of questioning – that tug-of-war between self-critique and self-worth, between what we predict we should always have and what we’re allowed to need. It’s a music that cuts to the core of millennial disillusionment, after which retains digging – trying to find sweetness within the stress, and lightweight in the midst of the wreckage.
I’ve been making an attempt to have an excellent life
However nobody needs you to be happy
They double the invoice and break up the difference
Go away you paying down the curiosity
They are saying you get what you pay for
I purchased a mattress on the low cost retailer
I really feel like I’m sleeping on a concrete ground
I assume you get what you pay for
“I’ve each plenty of class satisfaction and plenty of class disgrace,” Dunne, a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, member of folks rock supergroup Improbable Cat, and longtime favourite of our pages, tells Atwood Journal. “The story form of ping pongs backwards and forwards between ‘why’s it so onerous to have an excellent factor?’ and ‘is it so unhealthy to need a good factor?’ Which is kind of what I’m at all times asking myself – once I can’t get what I would like or want, I’m simply so existentially pissed off. After which the second I do, I begin to have imposter syndrome, questioning if I deserve this $6 espresso.”
Why’s it so onerous to have an excellent factor?
It needs to be simpler you’ll assume
You higher be wealthy and good wanting
‘Trigger it’s so onerous to have an excellent factor
“Clams On line casino” is the title monitor and thesis assertion of Dunne’s fourth album, out September 5th through Lacking Piece Data. Impressed by working-class blues and trendy malaise, the report asks what occurs after the dream fades – when the unhealthy guys have received, and also you’re left making an attempt to salvage dignity, which means, and a bit of pleasure on the dinner desk. “Total, I’m actually inquisitive about following my era by way of the completely different phases of life, narratively talking. The folks in these songs are the identical folks populating these songs on the final two albums – each these information are about millennial disillusionment. So this report is about what occurs after. To me, it’s in regards to the chasm between promoting out and shifting out,” Dunne says. “Ought to I keep or ought to I am going? The everlasting query.”
I’m simply making an attempt to have an excellent life
Clams on line casino on a Sunday evening
Betting the home on a bottle of wine
I’m simply making an attempt to have an excellent time
Is it so unhealthy to need a good factor?
Don’t even let em catch you wanting
Don’t let em see you get your foot in
Is it so unhealthy to need a good factor?
‘Trigger all I would like is just a bit bit extra
Is that a lot for me to ask for?
And clams on line casino on a Sunday evening
Is it so unhealthy to need a good life?
Is it so unhealthy to need a good life?
That stress is baked into each line of “Clams On line casino,” the place layered guitars, gentle synths, and a soulful vocal burn gradual and regular. Dunne opens the music in a spot of quiet frustration: “I’ve been making an attempt to have an excellent life / However nobody needs you to be happy / They double the invoice and break up the distinction / Go away you paying down the curiosity.” From there, the verses spiral deeper into the on a regular basis indignities of scraping by – “I purchased a mattress on the low cost retailer / I really feel like I’m sleeping on a concrete ground.”
He in the end hits his excessive within the music’s spirited refrain – daring, buoyant, and brutally sincere: “Why’s it so onerous to have an excellent factor? / It needs to be simpler, you’ll assume / You higher be wealthy and good wanting / ’Trigger it’s so onerous to have an excellent factor.”
Dunne explains how this music got here very naturally to him, pushed by the title, which he had sitting in his pocket book for fairly a while, and at all times appreciated. The query was at all times when, not if he’d write this music. “I felt like ‘Clams On line casino’ is what a working man thinks a wealthy man eats, and I felt like I may fold plenty of story into that,” he shares. “This one got here fairly simple to me – the themes on this music had been consuming at me in a very aggravating means. I knew the second I wrote it that it was the course I wanted to go. I may simply see all of the characters taking part in out, like a film.”
She stated all you do is bitch and moan
You’re by no means pleased and also you’re by no means residence
Everybody needs what they don’t have
And you actually don’t have it half unhealthy
However child I’m making an attempt to precise myself
You understand the physician stated it’d assist
If I can launch a few of this stress
If I could make peace with this query
Dunne’s brilliance lies in his steadiness of humor and heaviness, irony and empathy. “I’m simply making an attempt to have an excellent life / Clams on line casino on a Sunday evening / Betting the home on a bottle of wine / I’m simply making an attempt to have an excellent time.” The imagery is wealthy and cinematic – a bit of absurd, a bit of tragic, and all too actual. Whether or not he’s dreaming of tiny luxuries or calling himself out mid-song, there’s a vulnerability right here that makes the entire thing hit more durable.
“The final verse is my favourite,” Dunne says. “A second character enters and eviscerates the argument as utterly self-involved and ineffective.” She cuts by way of the noise with biting readability: “All you do is bitch and moan / You’re by no means pleased and also you’re by no means residence / Everybody needs what they don’t have / And you actually don’t have it half unhealthy.” It’s the form of mirror that stings – and it’s what retains this music from collapsing beneath its personal weight.
Is it so unhealthy to need a good factor?
Don’t even let em catch you wanting
Don’t let em see you get your foot in
Is it so unhealthy to need a good factor?
‘Trigger all I would like is just a bit bit extra
Is that a lot for me to ask for?
And clams on line casino on a Sunday evening
Is it so unhealthy to need a good life?
Is it so unhealthy to need a good life?
Is it so unhealthy to need a good life?
If his final album, 2023’s Loser on the Ropes, was about nonetheless being within the combat, then Clams On line casino is what occurs when the ultimate bell rings and also you’re left choosing up the items. And but, there’s hope right here – not low-cost optimism, however hardened grace. “My intention for all my information has at all times been to make folks really feel much less alone of their private struggles. However I wished to tackle a much bigger challenge on this album and the way it trickles down (no pun meant) to 1’s private points. Catching a break on this world is sort of not possible,” Dunne says. “There’s a humiliation of riches on our planet they usually’re being hoarded by a bunch of lottery winners who don’t even know what they’ve.”
For anybody feeling a bit of onerous up – for which means, cash, or a second of peace – “Clams On line casino” is a mirror and a balm. Dunne could also be calling himself out, however in doing so, he’s calling all of us in. And whereas I’ve by no means had clams on line casino, primarily based on this music, it positive sounds good.
“Passenger”
by Glitterfox
Tright here’s a dreamy warmth that radiates from Glitterfox’s “Passenger” – the type that builds gradual and regular, like neon reflections in a midnight window. It’s lush and cinematic, achingly intimate and dripping with need. The music simmers in smoldering heat, mixing indie rock and Americana into one thing spellbinding and soul-stirring – a hypnotic journey by way of self-inquiry, longing, and the unusual consolation of letting go.
Avenue’s dim however I don’t thoughts the darkish
Ready on this boulevard
Doorways open and I take my ticket
Evening trip to the town restrict
Take me there
Previous the pale storefronts and homes
Sirens blare
Avenue’s empty however my head is crowded
The primary single off Glitterfox’s upcoming debut album decoder (out August 22 through Jealous Butcher Data), “Passenger” opens in a second of stillness: “Avenue’s dim however I don’t thoughts the darkish / Ready on this boulevard.” The world outdoors is likely to be silent, however inside, there’s motion – ideas stirring, feelings burning. “The music begins with the story of an individual ready for the bus on a darkish and empty road at evening,” guitarist Andrea Walker shares. “When my ex and I had been collectively we shared a automotive, which meant I ended up driving the bus quite a bit… That bus is totally enchanting at evening. There are two pink neon strip lights operating the size of it that made me really feel proper at residence.”
It was these late-night bus rides that impressed Walker to assume larger – about destiny, free will, and the phantasm of management. “Perhaps my very own future is a bit like that #4 bus,” they mirror. “I’ve some autonomy… however so far as controlling the place the bus is definitely headed? I can’t see into the long run. In that means I’ll at all times be a passenger within the car of future. However greatest be certain I’m going to make absolutely the many of the trip I’ve been given.”
I’m only a passenger
Misplaced within the metropolis lights
A face on the quantity 4
Driving at midnight
That metaphor pulses all through the monitor, captured in traces like “Take me there / Previous the pale storefronts and homes… I’m only a passenger / Misplaced within the metropolis lights / A face on the quantity 4 / Driving at midnight.” It’s a music about give up – not in defeat, however in radical acceptance. Of who we’re, the place we’ve been, and what would possibly lie forward.
Doorways open and I take my ticket
Evening trip to the town restrict
Take me there
Previous the empty rail yards and fountains
Stars so pale
How am I gonna know once I’ve discovered it
I’m only a passenger
Misplaced within the metropolis lights
A face on the quantity 4
Driving at midnight
Primarily based in Portland, Oregon, Glitterfox is the magnetic, genre-blurring undertaking of Solange Igoa and Andrea Walker – two longtime artistic and romantic companions who, regardless of not too long ago splitting after 12 years collectively, proceed to make music with unshakable emotional readability and connection. The band shaped in Lengthy Seashore again in 2012 and constructed their repute the old school means: Touring relentlessly, busking, and displaying up with uncooked coronary heart and unforgettable songs. Their sound blends storage rock, new wave, Americana, and dance – a collage of types made uniquely their very own by way of storytelling, sweat, and soul. Atwood Journal beforehand praised the band’s 2023 single “TV” as a “cathartic eruption of ache, exhaustion, and emotionally charged indie rock… a young music filled with turbulence and turmoil, eager for a light-weight on the finish of this lengthy, darkish tunnel.”
Out in late August, Glitterfox’s decoder is already shaping as much as be a kaleidoscopic, deeply human debut – processing the aftermath of a long-term relationship with heat, wit, and full-bodied feeling. “We do that Fleetwood Mac trick,” frontperson Solange Igoa says, “the place you’re taking a very heavy subject however make it a dance music.” In “Passenger,” that trick turns into magic: Glitterfox conjure a world that aches and glows without delay, a trip you by no means wish to finish.
I’m only a passenger
Misplaced within the metropolis lights
A face on the quantity 4
Driving at midnight
I’m only a passenger
Misplaced within the metropolis lights
A face on the quantity 4
Driving at midnight
“Oh Large World”
by Mon Rovîa
Mon Rovîa’s soul-stirring songwriting doesn’t simply soothe – it invitations listeners to exhale, to mirror, to maintain shifting ahead. Launched in early Could, his music “Oh Large World” is a quiet revelation: A gentle, stirring breath of contemporary air in a world that hardly ever lets us relaxation. It’s light however highly effective, serene however looking – a soul-nourishing reminder that there’s nonetheless surprise, nonetheless goodness, nonetheless room to dream, even when the whole lot feels damaged.
Bother
By way of the rubble, of time
I’m feeling the load of decline
By way of damaged mattress seams
Lies a hopeful dream
Theres a spot
To seek out
Wanting
By way of the window, unknown
At all the locations you could possibly go
And the extra you sit with it
The extra that you just stiffen
The extra your worry corrodes
Constructed on little greater than voice and guitar, “Oh Large World” glows with heat and intention. Mon’s efficiency is unvarnished and alive – his fingerpicked melodies pulsing like a heartbeat, his voice carrying the load of hope and heaviness in equal measure. Small sounds change into bigger than life in his fingers, and that’s a part of what makes this music so shifting: It’s a testomony to the quiet energy of vulnerability, and the fantastic thing about our personal fragile humanity.
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
Solely exists outdoors the traces
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
You get what you give
Should you resolve to strive
“Ohh, this extensive world of mine / Solely exists outdoors the traces / You get what you give / Should you resolve to strive,” Mon sings within the refrain – a mantra for anybody on the sting of worry, hesitation, or change. Every verse unfolds like a meditation, tracing moments of battle and doubt earlier than turning outward: “Wanting by way of the window, unknown / At all the locations you could possibly go / And the extra you sit with it, the extra that you just stiffen / The extra your worry corrodes.”
Launched in partnership with To Write Love On Her Arms for Psychological Well being Consciousness Month, “Oh Large World” is deeply private for Mon Rovîa. “‘Oh Large World’ is a testomony to resilience and hope, urging listeners to step past worry into boundless alternative,” he shares. “In these difficult occasions, this music gently reminds us to embrace the world’s goodness. It displays the therapeutic energy of embracing one’s fact, particularly for me as a person navigating psychological well being struggles. It encourages me to exit, discover others who share these experiences, and proceed collectively – as a result of in case you don’t go, you’ll by no means know, and solely you may resolve to strive.”
Shiver
‘Til thе river, runs out
Or comply with these whispering winds south
And what you thought a frightful drеam
Turns into one other factor
And your worries
Return to the clouds
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
Solely exists, outdoors the traces
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
You get what you give
Should you, resolve to strive
That message lands like a lifeline. As he sings within the closing verse, “What you thought a frightful dream turns into one other factor / And your worries return to the clouds.” It’s not about erasing the worry – it’s about selecting to maintain going, anyway.
A Liberia-born, Tennessee-based artist mixing Afro-Appalachian people and indie sensibilities – and certainly one of Atwood Journal’s 2025 artists to observe – Mon Rovîa has been constructing towards this second for years – fascinating audiences along with his heartfelt songwriting and breathtakingly sincere performances. “Oh Large World” seems like a quintessential expression of his artistry: openhearted, quietly defiant, and full of sunshine.
In a world that may really feel more and more disconnected and overwhelming, Mon Rovîa offers us a purpose to pause – to breathe, to imagine, to start once more. We’d like extra songs like this. We’d like extra voices like his.
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
Solely exists, outdoors the traces
Ohh, this extensive world of mine
You get what you give
Should you, resolve, to strive
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