MØ - Motordrome / like tumbling into a field of stars?

I wrote this album trying to digest the past 7 years of my life. The star chasing, the glamour, the fun, the shit, the gas lighting, the stress, all the places, all the people, the power-alien-fantastical-dream-explosive journey. When I pulled the plug in 2019, realising I needed to focus on my mental as well as general health, my whole world was spinning. It took me a long time, and I still don’t see things clearly (if such a thing is even possible). It just so happens that I took a break right as the world ground to a halt due to covid and I found myself spinning, processing, and reflecting along with everyone else. Writing this album helped me digest it all and sink back into a less spinning self. This is what I remember:

I remember a 1000 airports. SAS lounges and buffets. My colleagues' zombie faces lit up by their computer screens. My warm feelings for them. I remember my brain being severely hit by a jetlag hammer, over and over again, but I did not care - I was living. 

Desperately buying 3 pairs of Victoria Secret thongs at the airport because there were no other options. A duty free candle to calm me down. 

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

I remember a beautiful deserted highway in Australia. A city in the midwest. Crossing the border to Canada at 4am. Coffee to go in a hotel lobby. 

I remember tour busses smelling at first very clean, but then, as you get further in, smelling like old feet and ass. 

Dusty backsides to festival stages. The scent of summer loving in the air, and eternal mud and glitter on my boots. 

I remember the Christmas candles in my eyes, though I couldn't see them, I could feel them. They were constant for a while. Only put out occasionally by sleep deprivation, an overload of work or confusing energies from business partners. 

Dinner after dinner after dinner after dinner. Just feed me more food and festival gigs and radio visits and tv performances and aperol spritzes and potential collaborations and sessions and good news, or bad news. Let’s just keep it going.

I remember not feeling deserving of this overwhelming privilege to be “living out my dreams”. I remember stubbornly trying to convince myself that I was deserving. I remember working so hard, denying my body, to convince myself and my surroundings that I was deserving.

I remember the night in the Freehand hotel in downtown LA, when I became aware that I was lying awake for 3-4 hours worrying about work stuff each and every night.

I remember thinking LA was the reason I was feeling lost.

I remember thinking “other artists seem to be striving here, so I should be able to strive as well”.

I remember the spa in which I had my first panic attack. I remember the feeling of total loss of light and myself.

I remember the first 3 weeks as the worst fucking time. My colleagues worried faces, my brother's comforting voice on the telephone. Everyone seemed so far away. I tried to read poems by Nick Cave, but every word turned into fast tunnels.

I remember being back in copenhagen. My friend saying “we will be with you through this and to the very end”. I remember a flood of relief.

I remember how difficult it was to let go of someone that I had been working with since the beginning of my career, but the urgency of the situation overruling everything. 

I remember feeling like I was a new person in a new world. It was scary but I had not felt this awake in 5 years.

I remember endless episodes of RuPauls Dragrace and The Big Bakeoff as I tried to regulate (you too?)

I remember writing Goosebumps, feeling thankful for music as a whole, and for it’s magical healing powers.

I remember Christmas, a year after, being the first time I felt good in a long period of time. I remember for a brief moment, missing the road like crazy. 

I remember the night after my vocal surgery. I dreamt Roxxxy Andrews had turned into a Raptor, and was roaming around in endless circles outside a Walmart. I woke up in a panic attack but I couldn't speak. 

I remember a long period of time where things were up and down, but the sum of it all was boring. 

I remember reading The Sandman, and in the book called “The Worlds End” a sentence: “…like tumbling into a field of stars”.

I remember an artist friend telling me she also had felt very lost in LA. I remember not feeling so  alone after all.

Give me an anchor and I’ll make you something nice.

I remember the energy released in me, the day we wrote Live To Survive. I remember getting the first take on the final production from SG Lewis, the same day Natalia tattooed a big snake on my thigh, and on the day of which my niece was born. 

I remember realising I might not be good enough, but that “good enough” is a stupid saying that makes no sense. I remember thinking I wanna stop caring about being good enough, and just have fun with my own magic. I remember realising this is of course easier said than done, but nonetheless, it has stuck with me.

I know I still have a lot to figure out.

I will continue to listen.

I remember how light I felt the day Motordrome was done.

I remember buying myself a Gucci bag cuz I realised I’m a pop star, and I’ve never treated myself like one, and really, the bag isn’t me, but it felt great doing it that one time. It’s not very long ago. 

Congratulating myself on my 10 years anniversary in this music industry. 

All relationships take work.

Words: MØ