The Big Moon – Here Is Everything

THEMES: Motherhood, parenthood, birth, lockdown, friendships, love.

The last time you heard them it was welcoming the release of their dazzling second album, Walking Like We Do, back in January 2020, when life was very different to how it is now. That was a coming-of-age record, bold songs for Saturday nights and sad songs for Sunday mornings. So much has changed, continues to change, and promises to change some more. And in this world of constant change, we yearn for the familiarity of a constant. Thankfully, one constant remains the unique, jubilant, unassailable bond that sews this brilliant London band together and what that does for their music, too. Another such constant is their collective ear for melody and knack for writing smart, sharp, and infectious indie-pop knockouts.

Like so many records landing in store and on streaming services right now, Here Is Everything was conceived during the weight and worry of lockdown in a pandemic. Worlds were turned upside down and inside out. Lives became seismically different, whilst every day a carbon copy of the last. So, whilst Covid pulled the duvet tightly up over our heads and sat on it whilst we muffle-screamed that we could not breathe, it was also the unlikely backdrop to welcoming new life. Vocalist Juliette Jackson might have started lockdown teaching fans how to play guitar on Zoom to help pay the rent (including, to her eternal bemusement, one Courtney Love), she ended it as mother to a super little human being.

Here is Everything documents the arrival of that fragile but mighty baby in real time, and the excitement and fear felt by this fragile but mighty mother. Meanwhile, the rest of the band doubled-down in the studio, taking Jules’ embryonic song frameworks and stepping forward as one, revelling in an innate, giddy togetherness and with a clutch of genuinely fantastic tunes.

The record is introduced today by Wide Eyes, a pure, uplifting song of collective jubilance. It sounds like a band in the form of their lives, having the time of their lives, and against all the odds. It sounds instantly like The Big Moon whilst sounding unlike any of the music that’s gone before it.

Here Is Everything was mostly self-produced, with the expert guidance and expertise of Adam Cecil Bartlett (Self Esteem, Jehnny Beth, PJ Harvey) and the Grammy Award winning producer Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Deer Hunter, and the producer of Walking Like We Do).

Format – CD, LP, LP (Limited Edition Transparent Vinyl)