The title of Pale Moon’s debut single alludes to their nomadic origins. While the Icelandic duo has not been formally removed from any place, they have traveled quite a lot; Natasha Sushchenko is originally from Russia while Árni Gudjonsson was born and raised on the verdant arctic island. They met in Spain and decided that they should start a band during a joint trip to Mexico; that’s where “Exile” happens to have been written. Listen to the new song below.
“I moved my whole studio into my parent’s old farmhouse on the countryside and started working on ‘Exile’ and ‘Waiting for the sun,’ which are the two songs that we wrote on that Mexico trip. The title of ‘Exile’ has nothing to to with the lyrics but I just had read Keith Richards biography; in that book he’s talking about the Rolling Stones record Exile on Main Street. I was very inspired by that amazing record as with the whole idea of seeking exile to get away from life for a while to work on your craft. The song opened up a new chapter of our lives and made us take our songwriting collaboration more seriously.” – Árni Gudjonsson, Pale Moon frontman
While that influence seems bleak, the colors are decidedly more golden throughout Dust of Days. “Exile” begins with sunny guitar chords that tell their own story. Gudjonsson leads the narrative, paralleled by his own reclusive experiences at the farmhouse. Life is funny that way—it imitates art when we aren’t looking and surprises us with our own ideas.
Pale Moon have a three-track EP due out soon, and it promises to be a flood of warm, psych rock. Its title appears as a lyric on a track inspired by a low-budget Russian art-house film called Dust: “one of the characters gives a long speech about the meaning of existence,” which is to say, he had little regard for it. Dust to dust, after all.
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