CURRENT RESIDENT ARTIST
MOTHERMARY
The sound Elyse and Larena have created is indeed extremely specific. The contrast of light and dark — of exquisite, ethereal vocals and dark, even gritty instrumentation — is elusive and engrossing, a unique juxtaposition that’s entirely in keeping with the sensibility of sisters who have always refused to be pinned down or defined.
The group split studio time equally between NYC and LA over the last two years and on January 28th, 2022, they served their mesmerizing debut, I Am Your God, via Italians Do It Better. A Sin Wave work of Art Pop that’s utterly singular, a dazzling hybrid of the old and the new.
Word choice is important in the album’s title, I Am Your God. “This album isn’t about a god complex, though we do enjoy power play, rather it’s an invitation to ponder what you worship and why. It’s about women reclaiming their holiness and inviting you to acknowledge your own. It’s about who we choose for our modern Gods as we let go of the bearded white men of the past.
MOTHERMARY makes retro-futuristic Art Pop. Named after the mother of Christ, the ultimate symbol of religious hypocrisy and the impossible expectations placed on women, the bicoastal project is the brainchild of identical twins Elyse & Larena, who grew up in a Mormon family in Missoula, Montana, the youngest of nearly a dozen children. “It was our world… our paradigm,” Larena says about those days. “We were brainwashed.”
Elyse was the first to get out. After leaving the repression of religion and experiencing similar barriers in the music industry, Elyse taught herself music production. “I wanted to have control over the sound. TOTAL control.” Larena followed suit, left the church, and rejoined Elyse in NYC. Creating music together became a form of therapy. A way to heal.
I Am Your God baptizes you into the cult of MOTHERMARY, I mean, religion… of MOTHERMARY. While we don’t believe in someone in the heavens counting our sins, we recognize religion and ritual are very important to the human experience. In Its highest aspiration’s I Am Your God acts as a mirror to religion both reflecting the bad, corrupting the corrupted, and salvaging the good in what has been called an engrossing sacrilegious spectacle.``
