Two years after third album Sorpresa Familia, Spanish band Mourn (Leia and Jazz Rodríguez and Carla Pérez) have announced the release of a new album. Self Worth is out on October 30th via Captured Tracks and it is available to pre-order here. It began to take shape in the spring of last year. Back then, things weren’t going so well. “We were in a very bad moment; the group dynamics were no longer working with Antonio. We didn’t feel like we could write a record with him. It didn’t work. So in the end he left,” Jazz recalls. “I think his departure was something that had to happen. We no longer understood each other. And it got to the point where it wasn’t comfortable, either on tour or in rehearsals. So it was a very positive change. It gave us the peace of mind we needed,” Carla adds.
In May, once freed from the “bad vibes”, Jazz and Carla took refuge for almost a week in a small house in the mountains, near the Pyrenees in France, to start projecting their next album. No phones, no internet. Just what they needed to write and record demos. New melodies, lyrics and guitar parts appeared, and with these first songs, they returned to Catalonia, where Leia Rodríguez – bassist and sister of Jazz – and Víctor Pelusa – the new drummer – were waiting. “We finished it with the four of us together, at the end of that summer,” Carla says. Jazz: “We’ve been able to enjoy the process of writing an album throughout the summer. In the past that could only happen under pressure.”
The band’s reconfiguration paid off. “We worked more as a team. We communicated more. Each one gave something in the composition in a much more natural way. Even with Víctor – who we hadn’t played with much – ended up adding elements and a different air to the songs,” said Jazz. Carla recognized that it was the ideal environment to go one step further: “I think we weren’t just ourselves before. Now we’ve let go. We’ve finally pushed the things that had to come out – things that we wanted to say and play.” These obstacles had a lot to do with their former drummer and their disagreements. Jazz: “We no longer fully shared ideals and ways of thinking. I suspect that some lyrics on this album would not have seemed right to him, and that would have meant a battle. I rescue the fact of being ourselves with these songs, without anyone judging us. For me, it has ended up being the best album we’ve ever made, because we’ve lived it much more intensely, with more freedom and welfare.”
We already shared “This Feeling Is Disgusting“ and “Men”; “Stay There” is a new excerpt. Listen below.