Panicle by Nika Mo

Bathed in the luminous glow of lavender-tinged suburbia, Panicle is the fifth studio release from alt-folk enigma Nika Mo. This five-track EP dives head first into the emotional swirl of early adulthood; written, produced, by Annika Moses and mixed and mastered in collaboration with Dan O’Connor of Encoder Sound.

The EP obsesses over the eponymous panicle, a loose branching cluster of flowers. As purple jacaranda flowers bloom and seasonal exuberance flourishes in the Noongar season of Kambarang, panicles become ubiquitous. They momentarily suspend time before flickering into ephemera that line twilit paths and parkways.

This floral metamorphosis—a beautiful, delicate and semi-tragic inevitability—is the focus of Panicle. Interconnected vignettes of adolescent naivety run through the EP’s five tracks—twisting, swirling, cascading and morphing through painful fresh-faced adulthood into ever more gracious and ‘grown-up’ acceptance.

Nika Mo deftly sidesteps the need for vanilla storytelling and rigid descriptors in favour of abstract lyrics that capture the essence of universal experiences; the obsessive crush of Faces on the Ceiling; the grief of young heartbreak in Purple Suburbia; the heel-digging obstinacy of Panicle; the self-deprecating embarrassment of Sympathy Laughs.

This EP transposes the minutiae of undulating individual experiences into a macroscopic examination of universal emotion; a reassessment of emotional hangovers, falling flowers and bursts and afterglows of youthful zeal through lovingly crafted DIY indie-folk.

Written, recorded, produced on Whadjuk Noongar land in Boorloo (Perth), so-called Western Australia.

Making and performing on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Melancholy-folk that makes the Perth mundane sound somewhat poetic.

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