Spotlight: Moonchild Talks ‘Starfruit,’ Collaborating, and Creating Music for the Soul
BONDING OVER A NIGHT SPENT STAR-GAZING — Moonchild, the LA-based trio composed of Amber Navran, Andris Mattson, and Max Bryk, named themselves based on a shared experience, a theme they have continued with their recently released album, Starfruit. The album's name is a reference to it being their fifth album, with a star having five points and it being the fruit of their labor, relationships, and experiences. Out Feb. 11, the album is composed of 14 tracks of neo-soul music that include collaborations with Lalah Hathaway, Alex Isley, Rapsody, and many more. Born during the tumultuous year that was 2020, the album is now ready to be heard ahead of Moonchild’s world tour. Blending jazz, R&B, and hip-hop alongside Navran’s blissful vocals and the voices of their featured artists, Starfruit is the perfect culmination of the trio’s efforts over the last 10 years together. Lyrically personal and musically soothing, Moonchild succeeds at making music for the soul.
“I feel like with every album that comes out, it's our favorite one or the one we're most proud of,” Navran explains, joining on Zoom from California with her bandmates. “So I'd say that's true for this one, too. I just feel really proud of the music and honored that so many amazing people collaborated and joined us.”
The trio met during school at the University of Southern California (USC) in 2012 and began writing music together following Navran’s first EP release. Navran went on a small West Coast tour with her friend and brought Mattson and Bryk along as her horn section. “We ended up writing in the car,” she describes. “We had been friends for a while; we were all in the jazz program and played music together in the past. But as we were in the car together so much, we kind of realized that we had the same music tastes. So we decided to try writing some music together.” That shared music taste was an obsession with D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, The Soulquarians, and Robert Glasper, among others. “It was really easy and really fun. And that kind of became Be Free. And then it just felt right. So we just kept making albums.”
Their latest album, Starfruit, was made from a similar process, only this time, the pandemic fell into the mix. “Every album is kind of born from the beats or songs that we’re writing on our own,” Navran shares. “So all of us produce, and we all just kind of make beats because we enjoy it. And we pass them around to each other and whatever everybody is drawn to or likes is what ends up becoming songs.”
But with the pandemic and the cancellation of their tour with Jill Scott, the group was left with lots of time on their hands. “We had all this music in our heads, and all of a sudden had free time to get it out in all these beats,” Bryk describes. Mattson goes on to explain that the trio then decided to partake in Song A Day, a community that encourages members to write a song a day for a month. Members of the community create music and then upload it to an online forum. This is how many of the initial songs from Starfruit were born.
Another silver lining of the pandemic — other than time — was that so many artists that the trio had long hoped to work with were finally available. “Amidst all the madness, people were not only down to collaborate, but actually had time and could work with us,” Navran says.
The group added that they had specifically aimed to collaborate with acclaimed Black female musicians for Starfruit, including Lalah Hathway, Alex Isley, Ill Camille, Rapsody, Mumu Fresh, and Chantae Cann. “One thing that I really try to do on social media is highlight women and highlight Black women with whatever platform I have — to just share music that I love and share really talented people that I know and respect, so it was kind of just a continuation of that,” Navran explains.
On top of that, one of the trio’s favorite memories creating Starfruit was listening to what the collaborators did with their songs. “We would get an email with Alex Isley’s vocals on ‘You Got One’ and got to listen to that for the first time,” Mattson says. “That was a really fun thing.”
“You know, you work on a song for a long time and you kind of get sick of it,” Navran adds. “You're like, ‘Okay, we're almost done. We got it.’ And then when we heard what they did, it just breathed all this new life and energy into the track.”
But the trio themselves also shared their own special memories creating the album. While they often work on their albums in Lake Arrowhead, California, one of their favorite moments this time around happened in San Francisco. “We were just up late listening to some of the Andris’s old beats,” Bryk shares. “And one of them turned into ‘Love I Need.’ Amber didn't tell us she was about to go work on it. And then I think the next morning or something she sent us this melody. That was a cool surprise.”
“I like to surprise you guys,” Navran says with a laugh.
“Amber is notorious for this. She'll pirate one of our beats and add vocals to it, not tell us, and [then] send it to us,” Mattson says. Navran explains that she often liked to pretend not to feel inspired by a beat and then surprise Mattson and Bryk with a track. The group laughed over the shared memory, a little bit of magic that made its way into Starfruit.
Now with Starfruit finally out, what's next for Moonchild are live shows. A 28 city North American tour begins on March 29 in Red Bank, NJ and runs through May 13 in San Francisco, California. Their springtime European/UK headline tour has been rescheduled to this upcoming fall due to COVID-19, but this hasn’t dampened their spirits. The trio couldn’t be more excited to get on stage. With hopes to have their guest artists join them and a few special opening acts, Moonchild is full of surprises and finally ready to share them with their community.
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