Mozart's Sister - Being

​Mozart Sister’s moniker is a take on Virginia Woolf’s famous lines from A Room of One’s Own, the same lines that inspired Morrissey to write “Shakespeare’s Sister”. Woolf describes the impossibility of Shakespeare’s sister ever being able to follow her brother’s career path, even if she were possessed of an equally brilliant literary mind. Mozart did have a sister, and she was a brilliant musician – and she was ignored. Thompson-Hannant has made it clear that this story holds powerful resonances for her. Hence, she wrote the song called Mozart’s sister, and took it up as her own nom de guerre.

And, yes, nom de guerre really does seem appropriate. There’s a sense that a battle is going on beneath the bubblegum-neon kaleidoscope of her music; “One, two, three don’t fuck with me” she warns, as if we needed to be told… Conformity really isn’t her strong suit, either - “Beauty’s ordinary, I’m bored” she sings in “Salty Tear”. The solution to this malaise? “Trip a little harder, everything will be better in the morning”, naturally.

Being is a delicate counterbalance of serotonin-soaked synth-pop and emotional overexposure. “Don’t Leave It To Me” continually recycles the progression “fear, sex, love”, the album even opens with the idea that “you can’t get a good thing without a bad thing”: there are no cut-and-dried sentiments in this record, everything is bittersweet. This emotional dexterity is showcased at the album’s midpoint, in “A Move”. Thompson-Hannant switches registers like a rally driver changing gear, moving from Lana Del Rey style vocals, full of ethereal emotion, into a spaced-out D&B influenced ballad.

Pushing the feminist envelope beyond a reference to Virginia, “Lone Wolf” is an ecstatic celebration of solitude. It embraces the idea of coming home alone from a night out and feeling more complete without a partner. It is all about life as a whole, complete, female individual – which sounds like it should be an obvious message, but it’s one that is not heard often enough.

Comparisons between Thompson-Hannant and other female artists will abound: St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs, Robyn and Mozart’s Sister all share common ground. But, no matter how many times she’s labelled ‘the next Grimes’, there’s nought they can do about the fact that this one, well, she’s really one on her own.