Darkness is Part of a Cycle: Luna Shadows Conjures Haunting Single “witches’ brew”
Photo by Lissyelle Laricchia
Sharing a captivating “diary entry from rock bottom,” Luna Shadows releases her haunting new single “witches’ brew” that touches on the preservation of memories and a darker look at oneself.
Atmospheric and lush, the track was written in the midst of Luna’s struggle to create while battling depression and anxiety, delving deep into an ocean of darkness and uncertainty before soaring up to the surface to break through into a ray of hope and light. “witches’ brew” is the leading single from Luna Shadows’ upcoming sophomore LP.
“Witches’ brew” is layered and complex, pairing a tender acoustic guitar with ethereal strings to create a sumptuous sonic twilight, wreathed in shadows. Luna’s tender vocals float high above, luminescent and clarifying as a full moon. The juxtaposition between Luna’s serene whisper and cuttingly specific lyricism is sharp. “Witches’ brew” bravely explores the way women are ostracized and punished by society for failure to conform, and Luna does not shy away from this pain as she sings, “back in the day / they would have made an incision / cut out my brain / wouldn’t have been my decision / earlier on / would have been one of those women / burnt at the stake / not a chance for forgiveness.”
The accompanying music video, which Luna directed herself, is set in a misty graveyard. Under a star spangled sky a black kitten acts as Luna’s familiar as she studies the occult and practices witchcraft, which Luna says is a metaphor for the creative process.
“Witches’ brew’ is a diary entry from rock bottom, a soundtrack companion to what felt like an insurmountable depressive episode – specifically in my case coping with premenstrual depression & anxiety (PMDD),” Luna says. “It’s from a moment where I felt like I would never again have the capacity to experience joy, like I would never again see the sun. While I’m in it, I imagine the feeling will go on forever – until the light slowly appears, and I recognize that this darkness is part of a cycle that will eventually come to a close.”
Luna Shadows is opening a window into her memories for her upcoming sophomore album. The leading single from her upcoming album promises all the polish of her previous work while demonstrating a deliberate and intimate lyricism. Shapeshifting for us, the songstress trades sparkling electro-pop for emotive indie-folk-rock. Unveiling her background as a classically trained musician, she composed the string arrangement and produced orchestral elements for this melancholic ballad. As the upcoming album’s sole lyricist, she searches for her best self in her darkest depths. Pieced together digitally with long-distance co-producer Bradley Hale over the pandemic, her vision is clear, nostalgic and satisfying as a full moon.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for talking to Unpublished. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t yet familiar with you, can you tell us what inspires your creative persona and artistic style?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: It embraces the juxtaposition of dark versus light, putting things side by side, and having those two differences make everything more obvious. Musically, my style tends to be more singer-songwriter that is accompanied by electronic production.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Is “Luna Shadows” an alter ego or just a name change? What inspired it?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: I like to think of it as my superhero self. I don't know if you've ever watched Sailor Moon, but she has her more confident version of herself. Even when she does go into battle, she's not always quite at 100%, which is why I think she's such an amazing superhero because she goes despite the fact that sometimes she feels anxious or unprepared. I think that it's my superhero version of myself, my best version of myself and it's the person that I hope to be.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Say if someone hasn't heard of your music yet, which song would you introduce them to that best encapsulates your artistic growth and maturity?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: From my previous releases, I have a song called “god.drugs.u.” I think that's my favorite song off of my first album, Digital Pacific. It’s a lot more abstract lyrically than the music that I'm putting out for this new era of music. It has this ethereal, electronic feel to it and I am really proud of that song.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You are about to release your latest single “witches’ brew” that is a glimpse of your upcoming sophomore album. What is the inspiration behind “witches’ brew?”
[LUNA SHADOWS]: “witches’ brew” is like a companion to a depressive episode. I have really severe PMDD which is like escalated PMS, and I will go through these depressive episodes where I feel extremely low, and extremely unconfident about myself. I have a really distorted view of myself. I feel like a burden to everybody around me. I have this gray cloud that looms over me and I just have to wait for it to pass. Sometimes there's not much that I can do, and I feel like it's gonna go on forever when it's happening. This song was written just after one of those experiences. The inspiration for it was climbing up the walls trying to get to the end of it, trying to get to the other side of it. This song is meant to be at the end of this horrible time. I couldn't have written that without having gotten to the other side, and it’s actually quite challenging to write when I'm really, really low.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How does it feel to put such vulnerable work out into the world that describes such intimate personal experiences with your body and your mental health?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: I think it's always scary to be honest. I think that's one of the things that I wanted to challenge myself with on this record, to be more open, to be more honest, to be more vulnerable. Like I was saying with my earlier song “god.drugs.u” and with my first album Digital Pacific in general, I've always had a strong vision for myself, but I think a weak spot for me is that I tend to hide behind big concepts and big ideas instead of just putting it out there and saying what I really mean. One of my goals with “witches’ brew”and with the upcoming album, is to go to that place and put it all out on the table in a way which remains poetic, but it still should be a little bit scary. I've had to be brave, but I hope that means something to people.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How was the songwriting process for you when creating “witches’ brew?”
[LUNA SHADOWS]: This is the first song that I wrote for my upcoming album, and I wrote it on Zoom with my collaborator Bradley Hale. He's in a band called Now and he lives in Minneapolis. We started working on this album together, just the two of us back in the early pandemic in 2020 and this was the very first thing that came out. I always knew that this was going to be the first single because it starts the story. As far as the process, I was really skeptical about how a Zoom session would go at the time because I’ve never done one before. I ended up really loving it and it was a really integral part of how we created the whole album because we both produce. We were both able to collaborate on the production. We could put each other on mute, we could send each other things over Dropbox, and as far as the track goes, I started by writing the guitar in the introduction of the song on my iPhone. We started putting together the track and the first verse just came out and I recorded it here in my studio and I sent it back to him. This particular song was finished, or the essentials were there within the first day.
[UNPUBLISHED]: “witches’ brew” is accompanied by an ethereal music video that touches on occult and celestial imagery. What is the inspiration behind the video and how was your experience filming it?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: Thank you. This was a really fun video to make. I've been directing my own music videos for a couple of years now and I take that title very seriously. I put in a ton of research and time leading up to this. I really wanted it to be an homage to the tradition of magic and the lineage of witches. It's a little bit of a departure from the song, but I wanted to lean into something more light and fun and it's supposed to be this alternate reality where I'm using artists and witches synonymously. In this world, I'm the witch character. As far as inspiration and pulling from other films and ideas, it's a tribute to all of my favorite occult, Halloween and sci-fi movies. In preparation for it, I watched The Craft, The Love Witch, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and even sci-fi movies like Star Wars. We were inspired to build a miniature cemetery that you see at the end, and as far as the process, me and the production designer built the set from scratch, the styrofoam graves, the flowers, everything that's there we created.
[UNPUBLISHED]: “witches’ brew” is the lead single off your upcoming album. What can listeners expect from you in this new era of music?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: I would say that there is a throughline from my older music if you've been following along, I think that this record is going to be more about the lyrics, it's going to be more about the words, it's going to be singer-songwriter driven, and it's still going to contain this ethereal, electronic production that I think my followers have grown to know me for. At the same time, it's going to be more open, honest and vulnerable.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How do you think you’ve matured as an artist since you released your last project Digital Pacific in 2021 and how would you describe that artistic growth?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: I would say that the pandemic really forced me into a period of reflection and introspection. I had to sit with myself and I actually ended up having to release my first album during the pandemic, and it was super delayed because of the pandemic. There was a long period of time where I had to sit with everything that I had done and look at it, be self-critical, think about what I wanted to be as an artist, where I wanted to go, and how I wanted to grow. I really put that to the test and I think my biggest criticism that I had for myself was I focused a lot on the productions. I felt like I was seeing all of these singer-songwriters popping up all around me. I felt like my voice was missing from this conversation. I tried to really work on my poetry. I tried to make sure that every single word on my album was really calculated. I'm really proud that I'm the only songwriter on my upcoming record. My collaborator Brad is also responsible for collaborating on the musical compositions with me, but every single word is my own. I think that's a challenge that I set out to achieve and I stuck to it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What’s your favorite song from the upcoming album and why do you love it? Is there a certain lyric or message that you gravitate towards the most?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: My favorite changes every day and I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I would say “witches’ brew” is definitely one of my favorites, which is why it's coming out first. I love the first verse and you can read it like a poem. I’m really proud of the lyric, “back in the day, they would have made an incision / cut out my brain / wouldn’t have been my decision / earlier on / would have been one of those women / burnt at the stake / not a chance for forgiveness.”
[UNPUBLISHED]: What messages, emotions or stories do you hope listeners can take away from the album?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: This upcoming project is about memory and it's about finding yourself and who you are amidst all your memories and how memory shapes us. “Witches’ brew” in particular, it’s me pushing myself to talk about myself in a different way than I ever have. Usually, I feel like in the past without thinking about it, I present myself as the protagonist. I thought it would be a really interesting exercise and more truth to some, everybody's the villain sometimes. I wanted to put myself forward in a way that’s distorted. At least in that moment, it felt very true to me and I felt worthless, hopeless and unforgivable. There are going to be other songs on the record that reflect great self-perception and high highs. What I hope people take away is that it's more about a journey of the self and memory.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Unpublished?
[LUNA SHADOWS]: “witches’ brew” is the first single from my upcoming record, so there's gonna be a lot more. At the end of the year, I have one other little prize that’s coming out. The beginning of next year, I have a lot more music that I’m going to be sharing and my touring plans were cut short by the pandemic, so I hope that I’m able to remedy that.
