Momma: Welcome to My Blue Sky
Mainly recorded live with the full band at Studio G in Brooklyn and produced by their bandmate Aron Kobayashi Ritch (he/him), Welcome to My Blue Sky marks the follow-up to Household Name — a critically acclaimed 2022 release that manifested their ascent. With the help of drummer Preston Fulks (they/them), Momma arrived at the album’s 12 immaculately composed yet immediately potent songs by matching the raw urgency of rock with the sticky melodies and taut arrangements of pop—a dynamic born from their deepened commitment to finding the most direct vessel for their emotional expression. “With this album we were less concerned with sounding cool and heavy and rock & roll and much more focused on good, clean songwriting that hopefully inspires people to sing along and mean every word,” Allegra Weingarten (she/her) reveals.
Welcome to My Blue Sky takes place during a charmed and turbulent summer—a transformative moment in time that co-founders Etta Friedman and Weingarten sum up as a period of “parallel chaos.” As they dealt with the fallout of that phase of their lives (a moment marked by infidelity, loneliness, heavy drinking, and the start of new romance), the two friends made a pact to wade through the mess together. “In a way it felt like we flipped our entire lives upside-down”, says Friedman (they/them). “We needed to lean on each other to cope with everything we were going through, and writing songs together was a big part of working through those feelings and finally putting them to rest.”
The resultant album is their most autobiographical and exactingly realized work to date, as it documents all the life-altering upheaval the two singer/songwriter/guitarists experienced during a whirlwind mid-2022 tour. Friedman and Weingarten wrote most of the album together on acoustic guitars before sharing those songs with Kobayashi Ritch. The multi-instrumentalist/engineer then guided the band through a highly methodical demoing process aimed at elevating their sound (or, as the band puts it, “setting a new standard for ourselves”) while harnessing the infectious energy they’ve shown in touring with seminal bands like Death Cab For Cutie and Weezer, and performing at major festivals like Coachella.
Equal parts shared memoir, communal outpouring, and riveting emotional travelogue, each track of Welcome to My Blue Sky is infused with both unsparing self-awareness and immense sensitivity. The result is a bold leap forward for one of the most creatively uncompromising and singular voices in music today.
