Tender and tranquilizing, soaring and serene, Mosa Wild’s 2021 return “Cry Baby” is achingly intimate and utterly compelling: A beautifully reflective, multi-textured upheaval from the heart and mind to our ears and gut.
Stream: “Cry Baby” – Mosa Wild
Tender and tranquilizing, soaring and serene, Mosa Wild’s 2021 return is a beautifully reflective, multi-textured upheaval from the heart and mind to our ears and gut. An achingly intimate experience, “Cry Baby” reckons with change, examining the subtle nuances of our complex relationship with transience and life’s inevitable transitions. Stirringly sweet and full of resounding sentiment, it’s a song that forces all of us to confront a topic we often run from and avoid, if we can help it.
We don’t speak like before
That’s all I know
Waiting lines at the door
Of last year
So don’t wait
Keep out of the dark
Don’t fade
You’re my veins
I begged you to leave
So stay
Released January 27 via Glassnote Records, “Cry Baby” heralds the highly anticipated return from UK up-and-comers Mosa Wild. The Ashford, UK-based band of Jim Rubaduka, Edwin Ireland, Charlie Campbell, and Alex Stevens, Mosa Wild stunned the world with 2017’s standalone debut single “Smoke,” only to break silence two years later with a string of singles and debut EP Talking in Circles in 2019.
In covering the band’s 2019 string of releases, Atwood praised their ambition and verve: ““Night” is an indisputable triumph that simultaneously feels strikingly familiar and innovatively incomparable,” wrote staff writer Luke Pettican. “There’s a warm intimacy to Jim Rubaduka’s self-assured vocal performance, which instinctively provides soothing comfort. The track’s production makes masterful use of soaring guitar lines and a reticent, yet boldly ever-present drum beat to craft an intoxicating sense of imminent urgency.”
I don’t keep anymore
You’re wrong I know
I’m on my knees
Why would you leave?
How could I stay?
Cry baby
So don’t wait
Keep out of the dark
Don’t say
You’re my veins
I begged you to leave
So stay
“Cry Baby” finds the same band embracing a new light and warm, buoyant sonics. Built on a simple, sweet acoustic guitar line, the song builds to envelop the ears with a dynamic, transformative soundscape full of delicate horns, graceful strings, and gentle woodwinds. Much like the song’s topic, the music itself rarely stays static for more than a few minutes – but much like life itself, the core elements remain the same. At the center of the storm lies Jim Rubaduka, humbled and honest, singing from a place of vulnerability and sincerity.
I’ve been here for years
I weren’t expecting half the pain
My mind is so clear
You’ve got some nerve to show your face
I’m sure that love is
Just knowing when to walk away
So don’t wait
Keep out of the dark
Don’t say
You’re my veins
I begged you to leave
So stay
“’Cry Baby’ looks at how the nature of life isn’t permanence but flux,” Rubaduka tells Atwood Magazine. “I think we all might have a complicated relationship with change, it’s either something we welcome or dread. I’ve always been fascinated with our reaction to change and the constant push and pull between wanting things to go back to how they were, stay the same or change.”
Movingly melodic and deeply ruminative, “Cry Baby” embraces introspection and discomfort as a means of personal growth. In its final moments, as drums kick in and a latent, long-dormant energy swells and subsides, Mosa Wild leave us with a parting gift: That of inspired optimism and hope. Rubaduka’s final words resonate with an innate understanding that, though turmoil and turbulence may accompany change, better days lie ahead: That there is a light at the end of every long tunnel, and it’s waiting for us to get there.
Won’t you let me change your mind?
I could do much better
I believe the sun will rise
I’ll love you better
Only time will tell what Mosa Wild have in store for us in 2021 – their sophomore EP is due out later this year – but “Cry Baby” is a fascinating fresh start for the British four-piece. A song full of space, happy to dwell in a moment of intimacy and solitude, “Cry Baby” is as sonically creative as emotionally compelling – a welcome return during strange times. Where its yearning leads, we do not know; but we’re more than happy to join Mosa Wild on this new adventure.
— —
:: stream/purchase “Cry Baby” here ::
Stream: “Cry Baby” – Mosa Wild
— — — —
Connect to Mosa Wild on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
? © Hollie Fernando
:: Stream Mosa Wild ::
