Best of Month: AotY #5: MOTHICA's "Nocturnal" via Heavy Heart / Rise

On July 1st, 2022, I woke from a stress dream at five in the morning in a cold sweat. Not knowing what to do with myself and knowing that no one I knew was awake I went to my desk and pulled up the list I had made before bed of the records coming out that week. One was called Nocturnal and I remembered it having some cool alt pop singles that I enjoyed so I decided to allow myself to slip into that one. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the dream-like state I was still in, whatever it was I fell in love with this release. Sure, I didn’t love every song but the scope that McKenzie Ellis presented with her concept of songs about insomnia was both everything I needed to hear and a perfect soundtrack to my own sleeping problems. The second the record was over my best friend had texted me about her own night of writing and not sleeping. I felt a real kinship with her at that moment, we were going to move in together in weeks at that point and I needed someone to talk to. I didn’t go back to bed until after work later that afternoon.


When I moved in my friend and I went to a Coheed and Cambria show together with MOTHICA as one of the two openers. She didn’t know any of Ellis' music and saved her reaction for the live setting and really loved her set. The two of us lined up during the second opener to meet Ellis in person and when we got up to her my friend thanked her for talking about mental health struggles on stage. I looked at her ready to tell her about the night I first heard her record, about how the friend that had comforted me that night was now my roommate who I had fallen in love with (she knew, of course) and that we were at her show together now. I wanted to tell her all of that, but I didn’t. Ellis looked at me, told me I was cute and said she liked my Poppy shirt and we all took a picture together. That friend is my girlfriend now, we’re both routing for a MOTHICA headlining tour to happen and we’re going to go together if it does.

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