Bedroom-pop superstar mxmtoon has announced her third studio album, liminal space, arriving in November — a little over two years since the release of 2022’s Rising. Featuring the already released twanger “i hate texas,” liminal space includes a new lead single, “the situation” — a collaboration with Sarah Bonito of Kero Kero Bonito, who we haven’t heard much from in recent years save for 2022’s felicita team-up “Cluck.”
Here’s what mxmtoon had to say about “the situation”:
What is there to say… we get older, then we die, and there’s nothing you can do about it! A lot of the songs on this record deal directly with the concept of girlhood and the cycle of life. I was twenty-three when I wrote “the situation” and I feel like I grew up with this idea that my early twenties were gonna be the time of my life where I’m the hottest and most fun I’ll ever be.
Society as a whole really pushes the narrative that women reach a peak and then slide down for the rest of their lives… and that’s just stupid. I always love to use some sarcasm in the mix when I’m writing songs that tend to be pretty emotionally raw though, and ‘the situation’ was the perfect opportunity to make fun of how dumb that is. Getting to work with Kero Kero Bonito on this song in particular was such a dream come true too. I’ve been listening to KKB since 2013, and Sarah’s vocals have been stuck in my head since Intro Bonito. Her contribution to the song was so perfect and fun, it really glosses up the song to be externally peppy when the whole thing is about dying! She’s amazing.
Sarah Bonito adds: “Inspired by the theme of death and the inevitability of it in this song, I remembered a quote I once heard: ‘Life is like a roller coaster; it’s your choice to either scream or enjoy the ride.’ This led me to write lyrics based on that idea.”
Meanwhile, of her new album, which was created with an all-female team of producers, writers, engineers, photographers, and designers, mxmtoon says:
In the turmoil of the last two years since my second record, I’ve felt suspended in a transitory landscape that often at times felt endless. It’s easy to feel trapped in something you barely understand, and life has thrown an onslaught of questions towards me that I can only respond with, ‘I have no idea how to answer this.’ So, suspended in the unknown I wrote these songs. I tried to unravel how I’ve chosen to fulfill the roles I’ve been given in my own life, and at times how I’ve failed to keep up with them…. ‘liminal space’ is an album for people struggling to understand agency, who bathe in the bittersweet and lose themselves wandering in their own endless hallway with no ending.
Listen to “the situation.”
liminal space is out 11/1 via AWAL. Pre-order it here.
