Aster Tracks

  Nocturnal is the third album from McKenzie Ellis’ Mothica. Having risen through the ranks from being a Tik Tok sensation to playing Lollapalooza to even starting her own label, I'm surprised it took me so long to arrive at a Mothica record. Especially when the one previous to this; Blue Hour sounds so compelling. On that record Ellis is contending with trauma from childhood assault as well as her own addictions. We are here for the present, though and on Nocturnal, Ellis is talking about her own issues in relation to sleep while touring us through the landscape of her own dreams. As for me, this is my first review written from my new home, if you’ve been keeping up. The bedroom I reside in now and the room right outside of it already each have a special kind of relationship to sleep and my own sort of ways I go about resting. The living room outside of me is like a dream itself, the way my new found roommates have lined their film and video game collections makes it feel like a ...

  Usually here, I’ll write some intro about where the artist I’m covering is from as well as some background on the record in question. Let’s face it though; if you’re here, you know. In place of that, a bit of a foreword. This is the last album review I outlined in my home state. I take these reviews very seriously, probably comically so for someone who isn’t making money off of them. I also get personal on these, they’re a form of therapy to me. Music is where I come to process and cry about complicated emotions. It’s where I go to unwind, feel my feelings, I don’t even get day-to-day work done without a record on. At the beginning of this blog I tried hard not to show my feelings that way. The first review on here is one of my favorite bands in the world and I tried to be such a stiff art critic about that. I saw how other people did it though and it made me less ashamed. I started recognizing that maybe if I get something out of art someone else could get something out of my re...