Video: MAWD, ‘Dark Room’

Kevin Bronson on April 2nd, 2018

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MAWD is the nom de tune of Madeleine Mathews, a native of Placerville who has been in L.A. for about a year navigating the currents of the local scene and finding some footing for her bold roots-rock. Her six-song EP, which is getting a re-release via L.A.’s Sound x3, ranges from gospel-flecked folk to gritty blues-rock (some sonic kindred spirits might be Joseph, the Staves and the Head and the Heart). And although much of her body of work dates to songs she began working on as a teenager, there’s a Los Angeles thread in her new single “Dark Room.”

The song took shape while she was in L.A. for a summer internship, residing “in a dingy dorm room in Northridge,” she says. “I didn’t know anybody here, so it’s about missing the important people in your life while feeling kind of lost in a big city.” Or, as she sings, “feeling like a stranger in my own skin.”

The song was produced by Josiah Mazzaschi (of Light FM) and the label’s Roger Gisborne. The DIY video for the song, directed by the artist herself, features her boyfriend and a bunch of other friends. The tune is the follow-up to last year’s single “Summer in a Dream,” a big call-and-response foot-stomper. “A lot of people write things just to be catchy,” MAWD says, “but I like to touch people beyond that. I want people to find it genuine.”

||| Watch: The video for “Dark Room”