Born in Spain but based in Scotland, Maud the Moth (MTM) is the solo project of pianist, singer and songwriter Amaya López-Carromero. Her monumental neoclassical style mixes power with a touching fragility that delivers quivering emotion and thunderous statements in equal proportion. As an alter-ego, Maud the Moth has long been used by Amaya as “a séance-like conduit to explore themes of rootlessness, identity and trauma” and The Distaff is her new release. A distaff is a tool used in spinning but has less functional meanings such as the matrilineal line, the Norse goddess Frigg who spins clouds hers, but in this case it is the authoritarian idea of the ‘virtuous woman’. The album was partly inspired by the Greek poet Erinna who wrote the 300-line poem ‘The Distaff’ about the loss of her childhood friend Baucis; initially to marriage and then to death.
The album opens with the short but mighty ‘Canto De Enramada’ which shows the immense power of maya López-Carromero’s voice which along with multiple harmonies is buffeted by dark clouds of synth-chords. This shifts into ‘A Temple By The River’ with an enormity that seems to prescribe unscalable cliffs but through which the gentle movement of the river, or piano, flows. It shows the full range of her voice which can be a powerful cry from within the temple or the soft wind passing through.
Poetry abounds in the lyrics with lines like “The sky splits like spoilt milk while all rests asleep, an eye always open, uprooted antiques”, “Shame spins the wheel. Swollen breasts heavy with greed. In The Holy Sisterhood of Grief”, “opium eyelids drop, Like curtain calls” “tu flos es quem hyems de flatu serpentis, numquam lesit (you are a flower which winter never harmed with the breath of the serpent)”, and “Primordial crown of stars dissevered, vast and verdant”. ‘The Burial of the Patriarchs’ seems to encapsulate one of the central themes of the album in which the dichotomy of women is to be keepers of home and hearth, bear the children, and provide food, but the hands that weave and make clothing must also bury the dead after the folly of man.
This is not an album to be approached casually, it is dense and filled with symbolism. The track titles alone had me diving down many paths to research meanings: ‘Exuviae’ is the casting off of skin especially that of an insect lava, ‘Siphonophores’ are complex polymorphic marine organisms (you can see them in the video for this below), ‘Despeñaperros’ is a river in Spain but contains the compounded words despeña (“to throw off a cliff”) and perros (“dogs”), ‘O Rubor’ refers to the specific redness of martyr’s blood, ‘Fiat Lux’ means ‘let there be light’ and final track ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ refers to the super-being in the mythology of the Bene Gesserit from Frank Herbert’s Dune books.
Musically the album is dominated by colossal waves of strings, synths, drums, and brass, creating a density that threatens to overwhelm with its thunderous passages, but when they dissipate to allow the piano and voice to drift through the effect is beatific. And bubbling in the crucible of these songs is that exceptional voice which has the mercurial dexterity to punch through granite as well as offer up a tenderness that is heart-breaking as it tackles themes of trauma, particularly in relation to women (or the ‘Sisterhood of Grief’ as mentioned in ‘Burial of the Patriarchs’) woven into the words.
The Distaff is best listened to in one sitting. It requires the time to block out any distractions and let it envelop you. It’s an album that is worth finding the time to lose yourself in its complexity and sheer drama.
Maud the moth socials: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Live:
23rd Feb – Some Great Reward Record Cafe, Glasgow [tickets]
28th Feb – Laidlaw Music Centre, St Andrews (as part of New Music Week), Fife [tickets]
Live supporting EARTH:
19th May – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds [tickets] ~
20th May – The Cluny, Newcastle [tickets] ~
21st May – Room 2, Glasgow [tickets] ~
22nd May – Black Box, Belfast [tickets] ~
23rd May – The Pavillion, Cork [tickets] ~
24th May – Whelans, Dublin [tickets] ~
Review by Paul F Cook
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