NYC-based progressive pop duo mmeadows have released their debut full length album, Light Moves Around You today. Made up of current Dirty Projectors member Kristin Slipp and Beyoncé, Lorde, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Laurie Anderson and more collaborator Cole Kamen-Green, the record is a permeable mix of sounds both fluid and rhythmic, organic and electronic. Their singular alt-pop songcraft is ultimately the synthesis of complementary talents, mutual trust, and years of partnership. Light Moves Around You reflects this connection; a dynamic and deeply-honed collection of pop songs that silence chaos and celebrate the tender acts of making space.

The duo have released the final single with “When We Are Together We Are Really Free.” The track further cements mmeadows’ trademark style; Slipp’s vocals zig-zag around the track, at times airy and layered, at others measured and direct. The song is glued together by Kamen-Green’s production; horns, synths, and pianos blur into cohesive walls of sound. “With community heavy on my mind during early days of the pandemic, but not within physical reach, I set out to write a song that I might play during one of a handful of virtual dance parties we hosted,” Slipp says. “The catharsis of sharing digital space with my friends during such a surreal time was powerful and lasting, and that energy motivated us to make this track super danceable, brimming with feeling, and short enough to demand an immediate repeat listen.”

The track is accompanied by a bold video directed by Haoyan of America, in which the duo perform the song in an abandoned church. Complete with glow stick dance parties and colorful tarot cards, it creates an atmosphere at once carefree and ominous – a perfect match for the track and the album as a whole: mysterious, mercurial, and fearless.

For Slipp and Kamen-Green, mmeadows is a means of survival, an outlet to anchor themselves from the currents of life. “Kristin and I speak different ‘technical’ musical languages. But we are completely aligned in what we hear sonically and emotionally,” says Kamen-Green. “We rarely disagree on the direction of a song,” adds Slipp. Most of the record came together in a short period; a furious creative burst from the two locked-in collaborators: “Nine of the ten songs were written in the same week. That the songs began to crystallize in a very specific time and place lends to the sense that they are tied to one another,” Slipp explains.

Following the release of their debut EP Who Do You Think You Are? (2020), where mmeadows sequenced a run of exploratory singles, their approach with their new album is more intentional. The duo found purpose and peace in the creation of the tracks, and the result is a cohesive body of work that unfurls and grooves from the same time and space. In mmeadows, vocal-focused pop songwriting is the heartbeat of the band, enriched by their liberal usage of found sounds and esoteric vintage instruments, like Kamen-Green’s EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument), in their productions and performances. 

Though the record has thematic through lines — community, familial and romantic relationships, self-discovery, climate crisis — the duo aim to emphasize the subjective nature of understanding in their work. Says Slipp: “We’ve been talking about quantum superposition and how that relates to music – one song can exist in an infinite number of environments at once, and its meaning is completely shaped by the observer. With these songs spiraling out into the world, we relinquish our ownership over them, along with their prescribed meanings. Now we hear the music colored by the lenses of others.” The result is an album which manages to stay reserved and abstract without ever feeling vague. The songs are direct lines to the heart of the listener.