The self-produced record by the Italian band is an invitation to enter another dimension, where there is a generation explained among the shades of electronic sounds
The Place We Are Living In, the self-produced debut album by Mookids, is out now. The under-30 italian electropop band formed in 2020 unveils a work about emotions common to an entire generation of young people, but told from an intimate perspective.
After winning the first edition of the Firenze Suona Contest in June 2021, Mookids began working on a sound more in tune with the maturity the musical project was reaching, and The Place We Are Living In is the presentation of this new identity of the band. Andrea Vignali (drummer), Daniele Pacini (keyboardist) and Lorenzo Chiaverini (guitarist and vocalist) are three friends who have actually been playing together forever, but it was only in 2020 that they decided to give a concrete direction to their musical project under the name Mookids and to release their first four tracks during the same year: Over, Neon, Isolation and Here We Go.
The Place We Are Living In consists of nine tracks of a magnetic-sounding and colorful electronic pop that creates contrast with lyrics, all of which are sung in English, filled with allusions to dark places – real or figurative – and melancholic images: such contrast represents the album’s interpretive key.
“Back in demons town
Black all around
In darkness I’m bound I’ll try to shut it down”
After a placid Opening, these are the first words of The Place We Are Living In, the album’s title track: it is the first frame of a dream, beginning in a dark place. Starting from here, Mookids plumb fear, uncertainty, the frustrating search for a dimension balanced between closeness to something or someone and at the same time freedom to be themselves through words – amplified by echoes of sampled voices – that describe the conflicting coexistence of these emotions in young adults living this stage of life feeling trapped in an increasingly anomic world.
A universal feeling that we can also grasp in an individual way, as Lorenzo Chiaverini, who composed the album’s lyrics, tells us: “I don’t write to tell a story in a linear way. I like to look for phrases and words that fit with the rhythm of the music we have already created in the studio, words that allow me to create images that inspire me”.
A liquid guitar gives way to high-pitched synths on the chorus of Please Give Me Water, and just when we seem to be breathless on the ending, Take Down The Beat reminds us to catch our breath before a more lighthearted invitation to dance advanced by Disco Queen: we are in the middle part of the journey. The drums and rock guitar of Mother Father seem to exasperate the questions: “Wake me up father / Why you keep me insane? / Wake me up mother / Why you keep me in vain?” These questions fall on deaf ears and result in the despondency of Sad Song, which is followed by the electronic, almost aseptic vocals that accompany the gloomy realization of The Spire. Finally, Wake Up, with its ethereal, liquid synths closes this dream: a climax on the finale anticipates the aural dissolution of The Place We Are Living In according to Mookids: a place they invited us to enter.
The band self-produced the album, recording it in its own studio near the city of Pisa with the collaboration of Mirko Cascio who mixed it, Arturo Pacini who mastered it, and Genau agency that curated the artwork and design.
LISTEN TO THE ALBUM “THE PLACE WE ARE LIVING IN”:
The Place We Are Living In official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HDAD2ArjaM
Follow Mookids on:
BANDCAMP
https://www.instagram.com/mookidsband/
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