Mount Monda announce debut ep 'A Dream in Slow Motion'
Mount Monda announce debut ep ‘A Dream in Slow Motion’, out August 12
Share single ‘Death in a Retirement Home’
Video Directed by Kat and Clare Hamer
A Dream in Slow Motion is out Friday 12 August via Part Time Records / Remote Control Records
A Dream in Slow Motion Tracklist
1. Summer Lungs
2. Get You Wrong
3. A Dream in Slow Motion
4. Eve
5. Death in a Retirement Home
On previous singles ‘A Dream in Slow Motion’ and ‘Summer Lungs’, Mount Monda demonstrated they’re no strangers to exploring deeply personal experiences within their beautifully crafted songs. New single, ‘Death in a Retirement Home’, heads a notch deeper again. Introspectively focussed, the song examines the grief that comes with losing a parent.
In 2014 singer, Matt Walters’ mother was diagnosed with a rare, neurodegenerative disease. “I was close with my mum. She was a bit of a hero within the family - she ran her own publishing business giving voice to first nations people - she was a genuine, beautiful force in the world,” he says.
As her condition worsened, Matt’s father could no longer care for her, and they decided to move her into a retirement home. “I would visit her often and came to appreciate her new home, or at least I felt comfortable there,” Matt says. “When you spend hours and hours in retirement homes you realize that death has a different meaning in those places, that it holds less weight. People that you get to know, and love, die very suddenly; one day they are there, smiling and being warmed by the sun out in the garden. The next, you turn up and find out that they are gone” Matt says.
“It's strange to think of all of these old and incapacitated people as once vibrant, energetic and loving partners, mothers, fathers, and children, and them all ending up this way. I think this is why so many people despise retirement homes. They’re not romantic places,’ he says.
After her passing in 2019, Matt turned to a journal to help soften the feeling of her fading rapidly. “I still wasn't making music at this point, but it was the first time I had written words that felt like they could be put to music. That was the genesis of Death in the Retirement Home”.
Mount Monda has always lain in wait. Matt Walters can see it from his house, quietly looming through the Victorian mist. One morning two years ago, he started running up that hill and back down again.
The metaphor isn’t lost on him. For six years, Matt Walters turned his back on music. He left behind his major label and world tours without regret. But if you’re a lapsed songwriter during the space of the pandemic, songs will call you to action.
Luke Postill, producer of Matt’s first EP back in 2008, also felt the weight of the pandemic. Instead of giving in to the fear of his halted events business, Luke saw the opportunity to do exactly what he wanted. They hadn't seen each other since that initial recording, so a chance meeting at the foot of the mountain seemed a bit like a cosmic conspiracy.
"This music; this collaboration with Luke feels like the beginning of a new chapter. It's nice to know that we're just getting started."