Local Review: Little Moon – Dear Divine

Little Moon
Dear Divine
Joyful Noise Recordings
Street: 10.25
Little Moon = Melody’s Echo Chamber + Weyes Blood / Kristen Chenoweth performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Atlanta

When one leaves a faith organization, they become reborn. They are given new rules on etiquette, definitions of words and outlooks on a future they could lead. It is a spiritual process of being gifted an entirely alternate reality. There exists a contemporary subculture of people living in Salt Lake who have left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It consists of individuals I find myself commiserating with about shared religious experiences and laughing at the absurdity of the thought of staying. Ex-Mormons are the mod social group of Utah;concerned with aesthetics and morals, the community is eclectic and amiable. The influence on the local music scene is found in songs like “(If) The Book Doesn’t Sell” by Ritt Momney. There is a collective spiritual awakening being shared through inside jokes about the LDS church written on bar and coffee shop bathroom walls and the vibrancy of the people who leave said marks.

Emma Hardyman and her husband Nathan Hardyman began Little Moon at home during the pandemic. Following their debut album Unphased in 2020, they released the single “Wonder Eye” and won NPR’s Tiny Desk Competition in 2023. The melody of the song was written by Emma and the lyrics written by Nathan. Greatly inspired by the couple’s experiences of leaving the LDS church and the loss of Nathan’s mother, the all-consuming track portrays sorrow in musical transcendence. The single is found on Little Moon’s recent album, Dear Divine, a sonic chronicle of the cosmos that inhabit Emma’s mind. The performance she gives is otherworldly—her four octave voice reaches over the heavens. There is an immensity of feeling scribbled all over the crashing crescendos and heartfelt lyrics. Listening is an act of sharing in the Hardyman’s senses while undergoing loss, discovering new pathways and falling deeper in love with one another. 

With an avant-folk approach, the overall spirit evokes the image of old stories told by loved ones while being tucked into bed. The initial song, “we fall in our sleep” is unclouded euphoria and vivid romance. The lines during the chorus, “In between the realm of dreams and / Spider kisses, reminisces / Those little tales of little people / Changing worlds—you change my world,” paint the bedroom ceiling with fantasy. Theatrical and lively, “now” brings the listener to consciousness. The lyrics, “Maybe you know it all / Maybe you know I’ll fall / And get it wrong a lot / To love as Jesus taught,” pierce my soul in a specific way. Part of me notes the explicit amorous meaning while the other explores thoughts of existential bliss. The introduction of “messy love” rings with digital glamor, inspired by the synths of The Legend of Zelda. Begging to be held and understood, the track takes you by the hand and leads you on a delightful odyssey. “holy and sweet” is sugared with twang and christened with a neo-renaissance style. Saccarine banjo finger-picking preludes the bridge containing the lyrics “I love you—that’s all I can preach.” 

I’ve always said that the color of love is not red, but blue. Much like the title, “blue” is as vast and profound as the ocean. The song was written inspired by a near-death experience from Emma’s youth when she was pulled under the waves and saved by her sister. The risk associated with vulnerability and intimacy is much like the mystifying and intense nature of the sea. Afterwards we are presented with blossoms, as “give you flowers” ebbs and flows between reverbs and invites the listener into an open field. Culminating to a colorful chaos of instrumentals, the petals are scattered all over the floor. Lighting up the soundboard with beeps and chimes, “eighteen parts” is a ballad about the confusion while navigating a post-religious life. The lyrics “I raise my glass to shadow people / feeling love, mistakes, heartbreaks / the burning to be seen as part of flesh” reveals the purifying practice of reaching restoration through embracing authenticity while being surrounded with loneliness. Stripped back to the bare bones of the sound and Emma’s vocals, “to be a god” sounds like a hymn played for children at Sunday school. It fills me with a sentimental tranquility that I used to feel when I would sing them to myself to self-soothe as a kid, much like Emma did herself. 

Dear Divine is like a warm hug from a good friend or feeling the sunlight blush your face. Listening to it feels like reading The Canterbury Tales for the first time. Filled with the potency of affection and ripe to the touch, it’s like a melodic clash of electronic production and live instrumentals that animate the psyche. Pure emotional processing and ecstasy, each tune from the melodica and pluck of the harp illuminates the hearts of the audience. I can’t help but picture a mythological dimension where the flora and fauna are always lush and nymphs build homes in the woods. It is a revelation of electric and orchestral vibration. –Marzia Thomas

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