Listen: Mona & Maria – My Sun

Veterans of Norwegian soul outfit Bazooka Boppers, the new project from Mona Andersen and Maria Knudsen sees the pair framing their sound in an entirely different set of musical reference points.

“Something was let loose after we started working on songs that did not fit the sound of the band we were in,” explain Mona & Maria.

“We strongly felt the need to create something more personal, and we started making melodies to something obscure that had been lying dormant in both of us.”

Debut longplayer My Sun distills the talents of the pair as well as the impact of their earlier band’s disintegration into something personal and spectacular: ” came a new musical need that we found in each other. We both were terrified of singing alone, but together we sort of found a third person to make us feel secure. We began experimenting with harmonies. It became our way of being together.”

While the title track from My Sun has the hallmarks of introspective Nordic folk, it finds its feet through an elegant mesh of the familiar and unexpected. A prettified pastoral breaks into the kind of sun-kissed psych-tinged burst we’ve been missing since Robin Pecknold took a time out from music. It’s full-bodied, spine-tingling and utterly magnificent.

My Sun is released on 21 October via Jansen. Listen to the title track below: