Matt Barnes
Passionate Cornish music journalist in Bristol. Often found making notes whilst crowd surfing.
New single ‘Milk,Blue’ is the precursor to forthcoming EP ‘other ways of landing’, to be released 30th January, by emerging Bristol-based artist, Pem.
The first time I saw Pem, her voice stopped me in my steps. This track does the same. It’s a song filled with aching tenderness on a bed of warm mellow cello. A dreamy looping acoustic guitar drips beneath a voice as beautiful as it is distinctive; as tender as it is strong. I took this song for a walk in the winter sun and the driving rain and found, no matter where I listened to it, ‘milk,blue”s resonant connection and poignant beauty remained. Nature is very much Pem’s muse and it’s present throughout her lyrics none more so than here.
On ‘milk, blue‘, Pem says, “This is about the moon, I’m very in awe of the moon. My dad passed away on the full moon and wrote about it a lot in his memoirs so it holds a lot of symbolism for me. It’s my ode to feeling nicely small beneath the full moon and the way it punctuates my life.“
For me, this song is about taking the power of nature’s regeneration as inspiration. That despite everything, through the hardest of times, loss and stress, the new moon will shine and you will get through this. All of which has me excited to hear the new EP and catch Pem live on her UK tour in February & March.
Listen to ‘milk, blue‘ here:
Catch Pem at the following:
20th Feb – Dublin, Borderline Festival
1st March – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
2nd March – Manchester, The Lodge
4th March – Bristol, Louisiana
6th March – London, The Old Church