Momma’s evolution from indie-rock’s newest darlings to introspective chroniclers reaches its apex on ‘Welcome to My Blue Sky’, their fourth studio album. The Brooklyn band’s latest offering excavates the whirlwind summer of 2022 when sixty days of touring reshaped their creative trajectory.
Songwriters Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten emerged from that period with stories that demanded telling. “The summer of 2022, we went on a really long two-month tour, and a lot happened on that tour that really flipped our worlds upside down,” they reflect, detailing a season marked by “personal drama, relationships ending and new love blossoming.”
Their twelve-track collection marks a considered departure from their previous record, ‘Household Name’. After taking a year to process their experiences, autumn 2023 found the pair stripping their sound to its essence – acoustic guitars and intertwined voices carrying the weight of their revelations.
“It definitely influenced how lyric-based the record ended up being,” Weingarten explains. “When it’s just us two with an acoustic guitar, we focus mainly on the lyrics and melodies as opposed to complex guitar arrangements.”
The album’s breakthrough arrived with ‘I Want You (Fever)’, a composition so compelling it prompted a creative reset. “We probably had about four songs that we scrapped after we wrote ‘Fever’,” Weingarten recalls. “Those songs weren’t even for the record necessarily; we were kind of just trying to exercise our songwriting muscles and were stumbling through a lot of ideas, and then Fever happened, and we were like, oh, we know what we’re doing now.”
Friedman elaborates: “I think that that song taught us to jump on the ideas that felt immediate and exciting. Sometimes we can harp on one song for ages simply because we really like the chorus melody or something. But then, after a while, it starts to feel taxing to even work through an idea that felt so exciting in the first place.”
Songs like ‘Ohio All The Time’ and ‘My Old Street’ chart emotional cartography with precise detail. “Being out on the road completely informed the entire record,” Weingarten notes. “When we both had our little romances on tour, we realised how much we associated those special moments with specific places. I’m kind of obsessed with the idea that you could be walking past a street corner where a total stranger had the best kiss of their life, and you would never know. You’d forget that street corner, but there’s a person out there that worships it in their memory.”
The meticulous assembly of their second album proved as vital as its creation. The band took great care with the track sequencing, as Weingarten explains: “There was a lot of back and forth with the tracklisting. Our main priority was not front-loading the record. It’s really easy to want to put all of the singles at the beginning of the record, but you need to figure out how to sustain that energy throughout the whole thing.”
The album’s architecture reveals itself with deliberate precision. Friedman notes: “We wrote ‘Sincerely’ knowing that it was going to be the first song. It’s kind of the thesis statement of the record, I think. ‘Take Me With You’ is almost a response to ‘Sincerely’, but it didn’t feel quite right to end the record with it. Originally, I think we liked the idea of the opening and ending track being a bit of a yin-yang or a call and response, but then I think when we finished writing ‘My Old Street’, we knew it was a pretty epic closer.”
The final track emerged as a profound moment for both artists. “We pulled it out really last minute, so I kind of always forget about it, but I think it’s a song that Etta and I have needed to write for years, and I’m really proud of us that we eventually let it out,” Weingarten reflects.
The album’s candour occasionally tested personal limits. Weingarten reveals: “We actually changed a lyric in ‘Take Me With You’ because it was too personal. But I think that was the only lyric we changed for that reason. There are a lot of things we won’t talk about in interviews because it’s too personal, but when you’re writing a song, it’s kind of a different story. You need to just let it out and worry about it later.”
Friedman elaborates: “I feel like if we got any more personal with the lyrics, some things could maybe come across as mean, in a way. It’s a really emotionally charged record, and a lot of how we processed those two months was truly through writing. There were several times when I didn’t even know I was feeling so angry, or hurt, or sad, or excited even, until the song was finished and I listened back to it.”
Their collaborative process strengthens with each release. “I think I learned that I get way more excited about the songs that we collaborate on together versus the solo tracks that we have,” Friedman shares. “It’s just way more fun to solve that puzzle together, and then it’s even more rewarding to play live. There have been a few really beautiful moments where we have looked at each other on stage like, ‘Woah, I cannot believe people are singing these words back to us right now.’ It feels really empowering to do it all together and to know that we make a really great team.”
Their aspirations remain refreshingly direct: “All I want to do is quit my job,” they say. “And I want to meet other artists that I admire and maybe write songs with them, too. But mainly I just want to be able to devote all of my time to this. And I want to tour all the time!”
Those touring dreams materialise with a headline tour planned for spring, followed by festival appearances in Barcelona, Portugal, and the UK, with Australian dates under consideration. A fitting evolution for music born from the peculiar alchemy of touring life.
Momma’s album ‘Welcome To My Blue Sky’ is out now.
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