Mothica takes us on a Nocturnal journey and I put this project to bed… for now.

 

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 library of sorts and the way the entire place is decorated really gives me a cozy headspace. It’s fitting I take my notes on this record in such a place. I’ve gotten to hear this album in many sorts of perfect ways. The first time I heard it was very early in the morning, I had an early shift that day for sure but it was something else that woke me. At around five o’clock in the morning I had woken from a stress dream and from there certain anxieties had kept me from resting again. I got up and decided to do what I always do; put on an album to distract myself. Now, I could have chosen a comfort record but I remembered that not five hours prior a dark pop record with seemingly way too many singles, all of which I did enjoy by the way, had dropped. It also had a theme around sleep issues. So, in my dreamy, dimly lit office, I listened and was enthralled. Since then I’ve listened to it in a lot of perfect spaces for its mood. In bed half asleep, on a plane where the sun exists above the clouds but not below them. In spaces between sleep and wake.

“Sleepwalk,” which I’m calling the album intro, really sets this tone of the world of dreams. The entire mood of this track sounds either like lulling to sleep or surfacing from the depths of a dream. Its production presents it as fuzzy and difficult to interact with, nothing is totally present and a lot of it sounds so far away. You could also say this sounds like the needle dropping on an old record player. The vocals are haunting and the instrumentation is spooky. This can also be used in either mode. Either you put this on to relax or its playing like the tones of your anxiety as you wake. You’re either coming or going.

If “Sleepwalk” is the album intro, the title track is the opening statement. On this one Ellis goes through all of these trial and error ways of living and being okay as if to force herself to relax and tell herself she’s doing her best. I won’t say it fits totally within the theme but it is effective. Once again we use a production strategy that is rather muted and buries its cords in the mix. In fact, the beginning of this track sounds like the mood of the one before it but condensed and more like the swift motion of falling asleep. The breakdown-like section toward the end uses keys and double time signatures to present something that is rather heavy for what this is musically but sounds perfectly like the descent from calm to panic, dream to nightmare. Like the sound of jolting awake thinking about everything that worried you during the day. In a weird sense this very emotion was what led me to listen to this in the first place.

“Sensitive” is among my favorite tracks alongside “Lullabye” and “Reckoning” both of which come later on. The instrumentation with the bass and groove driven verses made me dance in my seat even while taking notes for a “sleepier” review. That’s the thing about it though, the instrumentation backing this hook is literally just guitar, real crunchy guitar, but still just solo guitar. This vocal melody is incredible; the hook;

“Push me, pull me

Break me, can’t let go

My hands around your throat

Won’t leave me alone.”

Performance wise not only stays in my head, it haunts me. The lyrical presentation is a bit too moodboard at times and yet most, if not all of these lines don’t feel forced at all. Had I heard these lyrics from other artists I probably would sit here and tell you that it’s coming from a designious place but when Ellis sings these words I believe her.

“I’m just sensitive

A vulnerable bitch

Deadly but delicate

I’m just sensitive.”

I admittedly am not the biggest fan of “Highlights.” The production on this one is pretty basic and not in the fun thematic ways a lot of the other tracks are. Speaking of, while not every song goes with the overarching themes, I feel this one’s message falls especially flat.

“You love the drugs

But you shame the addict.

Flex your new car

But can’t stand the traffic.”

The thing is I completely understand the sentiment; calling out on people who only love someone or something when it works best for them and wanting to attack the worst parts of it. That being said it comes off sort of weak this time.

Oh, hello, [Aster]. It would appear you are having trouble sleeping in your new home.

This should be an easy feeling for you to acclimate to.

Do you remember when you lived in that third floor apartment?

Living, for the second time in your life with people who treated you as an alien.

The neighbor below you was severely unstable and made threats on your life at the smallest sounds you would make.

Your own body felt like someone else's, both because you could not see it as your own and the person you spent all your time with had robbed you of all autonomy.

Some nights, you would lie awake all night as it was the only time you had to truly be yourself.

Not getting up, not doing anything, just mindlessly browsing the internet.

The thoughts would always creep in, however.

Your anxiety would start to set in and you would be worried about being rested for the work day ahead.

You would stress so much about everything that you would never sleep a wink. Just be awake with the sunrise.

But do not worry, [Aster]. You know from this time spent that the next day never leaves you tired.

Just with an uncomfortable warmth in your body that never goes away.

That is, until you sleep again.

In the first of the sleep tape-like interludes that break up the quarterly sections of the record we are hit with subtle teasing comedy and the state of the author’s sleep patterns narrated by the Moth Man himself. The same fuzzed-out production that makes the songs before it work so well back a voice reminding you that you cannot find peace as the anger you hold is impossible to let go of and that you haven’t truly rested in over seventeen years.

What follows is “Casualty;” an alt pop and radio rock song through and through and while it has its cool moments it isn’t really anything to behold. What impresses me about this one is the themes and the ways they are presented. This idea that despite what people see and say about you, you are not your vices. You are not your past, you are not the addictions you have, have had or are getting over, you are not the habits you pick up. The theme of generational trauma is also hinted at with that bloodline lyric. If you come from a family with a bad history that doesn’t have to be you. You can make of yourself whatever you want to make of yourself. That and the manifesto behind it all is so powerful;

"I won't go down like that."

“Treat me like your last cigarette

Put me down and pick me up again.”

The track after that opens with another intense line, this time voicing a sentiment seemingly to an individual. In “Last Cigarette” Ellis talks about this perpetual state of using and being used in a relationship dynamic. Understanding that no matter how many times she says it will never happen again, it will. On this three song run the name of the game is habits. Habits change the course of our lives and effect the way stress and anxieties guide us. She’s also speaking to love and its tendency to be destructive.

“You can be the dagger that I put in my own back

Make tonight the night we both regret.”

Aside from that, the piano in the song makes it interesting and the vocal melodies, as always, are incredible. There is also a feature from German singer-songwriter Jamie Lou Stenzel a.k.a. Au/Ra. They take the reins on the second verse of the track and have a different perspective on its themes.

“Every time you leave, you leave with a piece of me.

Gotta tripwire the door, make you come back for more.

‘Cause I can’t get rid of the marks.

Got your claws on my mind, on my heart.

But here we are, tattooing the scar.”

They present this idea of mutually assured destruction. Living with the knowledge that while what you’re doing may not be great for the greater good, it feels good to you in the moment and in times of tension you must take your pleasures where you can.

Ah, I see you’re still awake.

It may be helpful to take some naps during the day.

I am aware that as a child you were never able to fall asleep in the daylight. That changed as an adult, did it not?

When you finally moved in with your former romantic partner all of the pressures of having to maintain contact for all hours of the day faded away. Even before that, she would not leave your home until well after midnight, no matter how early you had to be awake.

However, when that was replaced something else took hold.

You developed new sleep habits. You were able to fall asleep but it was more intense.

You would fall asleep every free moment of the day when she wasn’t engrossing your time by use of some stressful method of forced intense conversations or guilting you over not enjoying every single little activity that she did.

At night, when you began to watch television to settle in, the day would wear on you and you would drift to sleep in minutes.

Of course, this made her angry didn’t it? She expressed that anger swiftly. You took away from the time she wanted to spend with you as if that was not true of every waking minute she could.

This was beneficial though was it not, [Aster]?

Had you not lived through that you wouldn’t have developed into a morning person now to get a couple of hours to hear yourself think.

On the second interlude I am reminded of The Afterman records by Coheed and Cambria. This very sweet sentiment of the All Mother when checking in on Sirius, I feel, must have inspired the “oh, you’re still awake” in the opening line here. This intro is especially prevalent to the following three songs. Here, the Moth Man suggests reading a bedtime story and allowing yourself to fantasize that one day you too might live a fairytale that no living soul could live up to.

The song “R.E.M” is another one where the themes win over everything else. On here Ellis is basically talking about the difficulty to love in safe and trustworthy spaces when in the past you’ve been loved in very damaging and dangerous ways. She expresses a fear of comparing the relationship she’s in now to ones from her past and holding current people in her life to the mistakes of others. It’s a sentiment I’ve been able to draw a lot out from, having now escaped an abusive fourteen year relationship and finding it hard to trust on the outside of that.

The muted instrumentation returns again on “Bedtime Stories.” Again we create a perfect duality between sleep and wake, only this time the verses are completely muted instrumentally in contrast to these very cleanly produced vocals. On the side of the chorus we return to straight alternative rock presentation and again, I love this dueling nature between tones. Also, while this admittedly isn’t the most complex telling of what this emotion is, I do enjoy how this fits into this quarter of the record. I enjoy the references to fairy tales and how they make use of the imagery without being so on the nose. The Romeo and Juliet line in reference to drinking is clever, the use of Cinderella to express a fear of a failing love is artfully done.

While it may not be my favorite on the record, this song has been the most helpful to me personally. Being in a new place, in a new budding situation, is scary. The worst part about that is I actually love the way things are going but so many questions pop in my head every day. I am in constant fear that I’m going to do or say something that steps over the line, that something catastrophic is going to happen or that maybe some emotion will be rescinded on someone’s end and I’ll have to run. I’m recognizing now what that is, however. That’s what it’s always been. Things seem good until they aren’t. The thing I’m recognizing? I’m in this house with people who want me to be happy and safe. That’s further than I’ve ever gotten in the past. Further than anyone’s ever let me in. Things have gone wrong in the past and maybe it’s okay to read the past as if it is a warning, maybe it’s okay to stay up all night wondering. As long I recognize that there is a light in the darkness.

The transition between “Bedtime Stories” and “Lullaby” is immaculate. The sounds of whispers echo all around you as if walking through a haunted forest and sonically narrate the passing of one phase of the dream to the next seamlessly. As for this instrumental, it’s the most crafted here by far and there’s a fucking Polyphia feature later on. It sounds like Ellis leading a march of nightmares, singing maniacally as she gives into acceptance and madness on the heels of what the final quarter will be. Admitting defeat, giving into her anxieties, leading her demons like they belong to her. This parade feels eerie and faded but in a different way. The heavy bass, the horns, the howling notes. All from the perspective of a vivid nightmare. A lullaby nobody knows, sleep is the enemy. It’s hard to fight anxieties, I’m still learning how to do it to this day.

I enjoy the Moth Man’s inclusion in this track in theory. In practice? Maybe not so much. The reverberation line, I feel, isn’t executed well in its production.

Brain

Brain

Brain

Like, I understand, it’s supposed to bounce from ear to ear. It’s also derivative and could have been produced in a much better setting.

Well, [Aster]. It’s time for me to go.

Now that you’ve begun to doze off, it is time to separate yourself from those you live with and retreat to your own space.

Not only will that moment of getting up, changing, taking your medication and inevitably laying down start to surface you to the waters of the waking world.

It will also be a kind reminder of the problems you are facing day in and day out.

How being three thousand miles away from your problems did not make them go away.

The most prevalent thought of all, though.

Perhaps it surprises you, perhaps it does not.

Is that in spite of the fact that you said you needed to learn to be alone the thing that bothers you the most is the fact that when you close your door at night, you are the only one behind it.

So, goodnight [Aster]. Until the sun rises again.

The theme of the final quarter is acceptance and control. You have to give up on trying to be conscious or calm like a “normal” person and understand that while you can say out loud that you control the dream it is always going to control you. I enjoy the decision that the final interlude is backed by an elevator music version of the track “Tears” that closes the record out. As I was saying, though. To some degree your anxieties do own you, it’s just the way we as humans are. On this final tape the Moth Man has a very mocking way of telling us that. Coldly telling Ellis that while she should embrace the moon she should “keep chasing the light.” It’s twisted and tragic, it’s what mental illness and anxiety do to you. You have to eventually accept that you have something that you can live with, even if it leaves you with some nights in the dark.

I always preferred the moon anyway.

We get a feature from Polyphia’s Tim Henderson on “Reckoning.” Originally I came to writing this section with some apprehension about whether or not I felt this was a well utilized feature and I’m glad I took a moment to reassess and learn more about the record. The guitar work Henderson presents here well represents the character that Ellis is trying to draw from. A girl who gave in and became in control of the nightmare, an emerald hurricane. The riff he contributes to that really allows you to envision what that is; even step in her path and you will fall to her.

Everything about the closer is so strong in “Tears.” We come in once again with that baroque pop sensation only this time it’s crystal clear instead of the muted way it was presented before for a full circle moment. After all, you come to one of two conclusions at the end of a restless night; either you fall asleep or you don’t. This at its core is the same as the title track. “I’ve tried everything.” Only this time it isn’t to not feel the way you do, it’s to succumb to the acceptance that it’s simply how you feel. Some nights it’s like that. Sometimes life is just dark and you have to let the moon light your way. There’s always something in either direction. For Ellis, what there was for her in a positive direction was the art that her tears allowed her to create and what opportunities that art has provided her with. I hate to say that I relate but, well, some of you have probably read a string of these. For the past month a lot of these reviews have been dressed in a lot of pain. People can hurt you and cause you pain but it’s what you do with that pain. Do you stay up all night and cry, paralyzed on your floor? Or do you do something with that pain? Walk away from it and meditate on your feelings over a record. Present your scars to the world and hopefully use that for something great. Look at where the Mothica name is now. Recognized by some of her favorite artists, spending time with them and their families. She’s on tour with Coheed and Cambria and Alkaline Trio right now. For the genre she is that is huge. All because of what she did with her pain. What I do with mine is present it alongside my favorite music. Again, this really came a long way just in the run time of the record from the title track to this pounding, image driven piece of music in a more hopeful tone.

As for me and my own levels of pleasure, I love the way this album is presented. The Moth Man tapes make it feel like a complete package in spite of my small nitpicks with the record. Sure, the tracklist has a bit of fat, some of the songs don’t quite go. As for the quarters of the record, those sets of three that all have their own cohesion? Those add such a layer to the experience. I also think some of the instrumentation is a bit basic and it's not really anything anyone’s ever heard before, but what makes it belong to McKenzie Ellis herself is the production and sound direction. That’s something not anyone could have just done. The way we progress through the loose baroque themes and dark pop stylings. There are thoughts and a vision behind this record that is really great. I wouldn’t be surprised to include this on my top ten at the end of the year. Not just because I see some sleepless nights ahead or that I’ve dealt with a lot after dark lately. As a fan of music? Because of that vision? Because of that dream? I could latch onto this for a long, long time.

Also hey, before I go to bed here, could we talk for a minute?

When I reviewed Cliffdiver’s record I promised a new chapter to this blog but I’m going to be honest, I don’t think this is what I meant. If you’ve been following along you know I recently changed coasts and went through a lot in the midst of that. I continued working on this blog throughout that entire process. I never stopped working once. Not through a break up, not through a move, not through my entire life being turned upside down. I’ve noticed this past week while trying to plan the month out as I always do that there wasn’t much I wanted to talk about. Not because music wasn’t moving me. It’s because I’m burnt out. I keep up with new music to such an extent that I don’t really allow myself to enjoy something when it resonates with me. I want to go hear that last Mothica record for the first time, I want to reconnect with the music that made me want to write.

So, I’m taking a bit of a break. One of my favorite bands of all time put out a record in the past couple of weeks that I think may have changed my life. It’s the first band that has a review on this blog. I think I want to sit with that album for awhile. I think when I’m ready to talk about it I may finally reveal myself to you all for real. The readers, the friends I’ve made writing. Then we can really get started on what a new chapter looks like.

In that respect, I’m going to take a bit of a rest. If something feels right between then I’ll get up and pop in but I really need a nap. I need to establish what my life in my new home is and what my relationship to sound is out here. Until then, I hope you have a chance to rest as well. So goodnight, I’ll see you in the morning.

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