Astronaut Head’s New EP ‘Meek Moon’ a Bold & Engaging Exploration of Sound

Jessica Stoddard of Astronaut Head (Photo by Gregory Gheorghiu)

We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve listened to Astronaut Head’s new EP, ‘Meek Moon,’ since it dropped July 30. To call the work ‘mesmerizing’ might not entirely do it justice. But whatever the appropriate term, this record since the first spin has had a grip on us that hasn’t seemed to lessen any. And we’re OK with that.

‘Meek Moon’ is chill-hop, lo-fi dreampop, triphop and its vibe runs deep. The five-song EP available now on Bandcamp opens with the track, ‘Batshit,’ featuring a percussive rhythm that is both exhilarating and hypnotic, accented by perfectly placed discordant sound, setting the tone for the remainder of the record’s 22-minute sonic experience.

Astronaut Head is the project of Buffalo musician Jessica Stoddard, who spent five years putting ‘Meek Moon’ together.

“It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt satisfied enough with my production skills — which have certainly always taken a DIY approach, though I've learned a lot over the years — and feeling content with a sound that is both big and pretty lo-fi in a lot of cases,” Jessica said. “I always thought I needed to find the right producer to translate the sound, and that anxiety led me to a place where I felt stuck.

“Over the course of these past five years, I've returned to the tracks many times, but wasn't in the right headspace to share them,” she added. “I think part of that was getting over whether I mixed and mastered things perfectly. The EP was part of letting some of that go and letting myself appreciate the songs in a new way by finally releasing them with other people.” 

Much of the appeal to ‘Meek Moon’ lies in its contrasts. It is stark, yet full; it’s trance-like yet seismic. At times it is haunting and pulsating. And then, ethereal.

“It wasn't really until 2020 that I felt the music moving toward something that aligned the songs I was writing with how I wanted them to be produced and heard and — hopefully someday — be performed live,” Jessica said. “(I’m) still figuring out how to translate that, but I think I'm getting there.”

Jessica’s musical history is a fascinating one. Some 15 years ago she was performing around the Buffalo-area before moving in 2011 to Edinburgh, Scotland to attend graduate school to study illustration. While there, she played at cafes and managed to land a gig at the iconic Jazz Bar where she met some Scottish musicians with whom she would become lasting friends, joining them in the band ‘The Deep Red Sky,’ for which she played keys and provided backing vocals.

“We did two tours of the UK, which was awesome, and it was my first experience getting deeper into the production side,” Jessica said. “I left Scotland in early 2014 but continued to make music with The Deep Red Sky's guitarist, and we released a few albums under ‘The Little Birds.’"

As for ‘Meek Moon,’ Jessica said the EP is “a step toward a more sophisticated sound” than her earlier, singer-songwriter days when she was playing “quirky piano-pop tunes” at venues such as Merge, The Vault, and Mohawk Place. 

“I loved going to open mics, and there's a special place in my heart for those songs and that community from that time. It was a lot of fun,” she said. “Diving deeper into different audio workstations and letting myself make shitty songs and learning to make better ones was what allowed me to get here. Still figuring things out as I go. Meek Moon's production is far from perfect but getting it out is the result of letting these songs live somewhere outside my head. And it's been a good exercise in dropping expectations for perfection.”

Astronaut Head (Photo by Wonderful & Strange Photography)

‘Meek Moon’ is carried in great part by Jessica’s distinctive vocals, which conjure elements of Bjork mixed with Elizabeth Fraser’s work with Massive Attack on ‘Teardrop’ and Sinead O’Connor’s performance on ‘Fire on Babylon.’ Still, despite her compelling voice and depth of experience as a writer and musician, she acknowledged there’s still some anxiousness when it comes to sharing her music. 

“I think it's indicative of some of the anxiety that runs through both my life and these songs. It's impossible not to hear your music through the ears of others when making it, and that can make your own relationship to what you write turn into something that, at least for me, is hard to understand. ‘What am I really hearing anymore?’ The voices in our heads are loud, and turning out things – especially on social media – means giving the work over to others in a way that you don't always feel confident in,” Jessica said.

“It's not false modesty; it's just trying to be honest about the fact that I can still feel shitty and nervous about sharing good work. I feel like I've been getting better at that, though. Even if just because I'm accepting that life is pretty fucking groundless and holding onto things too tightly doesn't really help. If anything, opening up and sharing the EP has been a relief.”

We’re thankful she did.

Listen to Astronaut Head’s ‘Meek Moon’ HERE. Then, add it to your collection, put it on heavy rotation and spread the word.