The first official release from All Mother, the Yarmouth-based trio consisting Jessica Churchill along with Rain Over St. Ambrose members Marc Durkee and Spencer Muise, doesn’t beat around the bush. “Solemn Warning” drops like a lead weight with the recognition that life is full of surprises, and not all of them happy ones.
Recorded in January in Pubnico, Nova Scotia at Breezeway Studios, with a video shot and directed by James Turpin in Yarmouth, while the music itself shares writing credits among the band’s three members, “Solemn Warning” lands a double blow as Jessica Churchill discloses the truth behind her lyrics.
“So, the song is a bit of a heavy one, lyrically,” admits Churchill. “I wrote it just before leaving my abuser. I don’t think I was even necessarily cognizant of how true to my own life the lyrics were until it was finished.
“The verses are essentially a placid yet harsh existential monologue; a woman alone with her thoughts – looking at her tired reflection in the kitchen window, perhaps – while the soft light of morning adds juxtaposition to some dark realizations: that your life has gradually, and seemingly innocuously, become somewhat unrecognizable and perhaps not what you’d hoped. The coming to terms with growing older, losing parts of yourself that you don’t know how to get back, sitting in regret, desperately trying to stay connected to the things in life that set your soul on fire and give you an identity. Trying not to lose yourself in the midst of someone else’s control over your life.
“It’s also an admittance of culpability – of knowing that your choices were your own and facing that realization head-on before it’s too late.”
The song also adopts a second perspective during the chorus. As Churchill notes, it can be seen from the outside looking in, presented as “another person speaking to the subject of the verses, or herself dissociating and speaking to herself. Almost a future version of herself warning the present version.”
Eight months after initially recording the song, it’s not hard to imagine Churchill stepping into the role of her future self, wishing she might offer some guidance.
There is a consistent ebb and flow to “Solemn Warning,” as Churchill’s voice plays a gentle tug of war against Durkee’s guitar. It’s a steadfast hallmark of Canadiana, perhaps something inherently characteristic of the country’s expanse, or a stoicism ingrained into a certain pace of life. In the case of “Solemn Warning”, it gives the song a sense of perseverance; that life, like the monolithic inevitability tides or the simple act of breathing in and out, will carry on.
Churchills says that the first few efforts from All Mother have uniformly yielded some melancholy results, but promises we can expect more from the band than simply a one-trick pony.
“We’ve vowed to attempt writing a few happier tunes moving forward.”