Dream girl Moon Holiday just set her new EP free from her bedroom. She’s worked house basslines and flickering, drowning percussion in with her blissed vocals, and damn it is enchanting. She says she used to worry how her tracks (and lyric narratives) would be received (and decoded) by her friends, but after running every single worst-case scenario, she has reached the almighty zen zone of not giving a shit. With that, we hung out with her to find out what goes into making a record at the end of your bed.
Who you were before you were Moon Holiday?
I started Moon Holiday when I was at uni doing a music degree. The name Moon Holiday came from a weird dream my friend had, it was when I started learning about the possibilities of electronic music. Before I was Moon Holiday I was just a person trying to make music but I didn’t have enough people in my area that I could make music with. So I was this person struggling with acoustic music and rock.
What was your area?
I was living in “the Shire” and commuting down to Wollongong uni, so I didn’t have a real base. I didn’t really know anyone in the Shire because I had moved from Hong Kong to Carringbah when I was 16 and didn’t make any music friends, so I just went and bought all of this gear and then went to uni to figure out how to use it. It became a thing that I just kept holding onto. Moon Holiday probably started in 2010 after about two years of experimenting post uni.
What instruments can you play?
I am a singer primarily. I can play guitar, but I don’t use it really apart from a little bit in recording. I can play keys, and then I use electronic gear like a sampler an Ableton APC thing. It’s really more about singing and electronics now.
Okay, what makes a good song?
It has to grab your heart. That sounds really whatever, but it has to have some drama. Minimalist stuff can have drama, a piano piece that is played delicately can have so much drama, or you can make this beat that grips you from the word go. But it has to have a pull on your emotions. I don’t like the idea of making something just because it sounds cool. I don’t think making music is “fun”—I think it is an outlet for a feeling.
Let’s talk about your new EP. The song is great, and so is the video.
Thanks! The idea behind the video is that it’s beautiful but not. One side of my face looks ugly and weird and the other side doesn’t. It’s the light and the dark—that chiaroscuro kind of thing—sexy but not pretty.
I think that’s what the whole EP is about the gritty side of real life emotion, and questioning reality is a big theme. Trying to tap through to real life is so hard sometimes.
So what’s your process?
It’s never worked for me to perfect a environment to make music. I just create a space where I can do it, basic and functional. The only thing different I did this time around was get a really good chair with good back support.
But the process would be: I have an idea, grab my phone, and sing out the line into my voice memo. It’s always a line, like a mantra that gets stuck in my head. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s about grabbing on to a feeling and then coming home and turning it into music. It usually comes to me with a colour and a set of symbols, like some kind of divine message [laughs] but I don’t really know if I believe in that.
What’s the best song on your EP?
The best song for me is “Rid U”, because it was the changing point. It’s the one I did in four hours—I just stayed up all night to finish the bits that needed to be done after that initial burst of inspiration. I sent it to somebody and they said, “Yep” and I knew it was the right track to be on. Everything fell around that.
Words to live by?
I was actually thinking about this today: trust and kindness. We were talking about how people have tough years. 2013 for me was a tough year. I’ve had tough years in the past, moving countries and health problems, not being able to do what you want to do, getting your heart broken. Shit can be really bad and we’re all living in this state of half online, half real life, and it’s confusing. But if you just try to be really kind, no one even has to know about it, you just emanate good kind energy then. Even if shit goes wrong, you’re alright. Trust that things will be okay, and be kind.
Credits
Text and Photography: Hayley Morgan