Little Moon (Tiny Desk Contest Winners) Announce New Album & Share "now"

LITTLE MOON Winners of 2023 Tiny Desk Contest ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM & SHARE “NOW” LISTEN | WATCH DEAR DIVINE OUT OCTOBER 25TH VIA JOYFUL NOISE NOVEMBER WEST COAST TOUR ON-SALE THIS FRIDAY

Press Photo by Mario Alcauter

Today, Little Moon has announced her sophomore album, Dear Divine, due out October 25th via Joyful Noise, and shared the swirling chamber-folk lead single “now”. Led by singer-songwriter Emma Hardyman, the Provo, Utah-based avant-folk band made waves last year, winning the 2023 edition of NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest with a stirring submission of their explosive, ornately layered song “wonder eye.”  Following the release of her 2020 debut LP Unphased, Hardyman set out to write a romantic album about her newlywed husband Nathan, but the universe had other plans. After Nathan’s mother tragically passed away—a loss made more difficult by the fact that he had just informed her of his plans to exit the church—Hardyman recalibrated her vision and started work on a love-as-grief, grief-as-love album titled Dear Divine. Written after her own complicated departure from the Mormon Church, Dear Divine is Little Moon’s wide-eyed, intensely personal embrace of a whole new world. It is a vast, dense sonic tapestry of soaring multi-octave vocals over rich, future-baroque arrangements, mimicking the grandiosity and delicate ebbs and flows of nature, and the radical love and self-care that Hardyman seeks wherever she goes. “‘now’ is a deeply personal reflection on my struggle to be present and authentic in a world full of expectations and insecurities,” shares Hardyman, “Developed over many years, this song grew and changed with me, delving into the difficulty of loving and being loved, especially within cultures and institutions that often prioritize trust in them over trust in oneself. Through this journey, I aimed to honor the deep, sometimes shameful parts of our humanity. ‘now’ is a message to myself that in our brokenness and vulnerability, we can find true connection and love.”  Paste Magazine praised the song in their premiere this morning, writing "utterly hypnotic and full of love, apprehensive of loss but nurtured by trust." The Ty Davis directed video finds Hardyman escaping from a surreal theater performance to embrace her true life, she shares that it’s “about the inner conflict between being who we’re expected to be and who we really are. Growing up, I often felt like I was putting on a performance just to fit in. This video tells the story of breaking free from those constraints, shedding the costumes, and running towards a life that feels honest. It’s a reminder that there’s profound beauty in vulnerability, in accepting our imperfections, and in being fully present with our humanity.” WATCH THE “NOW” OFFICIAL VIDEO

All her life, Emma Hardyman has wrestled with contradictions. After all, she was practically rendered a living, breathing contradiction the moment she was born into her half-Peruvian, half-white working-class Mormon family. Hardyman never quite fit in, often feeling ostracized no matter who she interacted with, and understandably found refuge in the arts—but even the way she obtained one of her unique talents feels contradictory. As children of musical parents, she and her siblings poked fun at the vocal warmups their father would teach his students, but amidst these jokes, one brother frequently challenged Hardyman to sing above the piano’s highest note, unwittingly helping to shape her gorgeous, unusually high vocal range. She was also homeschooled and the youngest of seven, which fueled her nervousness and social anxiety, so when encountering stressful situations, she often sang church hymns to herself, leaning into absurdity when faced with fear. In young adulthood, Hardyman felt increasingly disillusioned with Mormonism’s righteous black-and-white thinking, as well as its exclusionary elitism, and decided to leave the church. But she also acknowledged that the institution’s all-or-nothing philosophy had become a part of her, resulting in a considerable test of grace and unlearning. Throughout that process, she began to realize that those parts of her weren’t universally harmful, and she started to ponder what she could lose by denying certain aspects of herself.  WATCH TINY DESK PERFORMANCE

While Unphased was a no-frills album recorded live without a click track, filled with songs shrouded in vagueness, Dear Divine is a vast, dense sonic world that mimics the grandiosity and delicate ebbs and flows of nature, peppered with intensely personal, complex lyrical motifs. Co-produced by Hardyman and Bly Wallentine (who also mixed the album and contributed banjo, horns, melodica and numerous other sounds), Dear Divine is laced with rich textures, from saintly harp plucks and field recordings of crunchy leaves to harshly distorted vocals and Zelda-inspired synths. The LP is also a product of the absurdity Hardyman holds dear, from jarring transitions, oddball effects and a goofy voicemail to perhaps the most absurd (and earnest) choice of all: closing the album with a touching phone-recorded acapella number—a courageous, soul-baring move given that it exceeds five minutes and is the record’s longest track. Hardyman's new marriage is explored in mercurial vignettes, which ruminate on what it means to love deeply while also navigating your own insecurities and balancing autonomy with vulnerability. In this context, it becomes clear just how much love and grief have in common: the natural desire to romanticize, a yearning for a home-like calm and an urge to make sense of the inherently nonsensical. Affecting and chaotic, Dear Divine serves as a mirror for the darkest parts of ourselves, allowing us to examine our ego—not to dismantle it, but to better understand how we love, process adversity and move through the world. To celebrate the album’s release, Hardyman will be taking Little Moon on a West Coast tour this November, kicking off in Salt Lake City, and heading through Park City, Boise, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Tickets are on-sale this Friday at 10am local time, available HERE. Tour Dates: 11/7 - SLC, UT @ Urban Lounge TICKETS 11/8 - Park City, UT @ The Cabin TICKETS 11/9 - Boise, ID @ Neurolux TICKETS 11/10 - Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou's TICKETS 11/12 - Portland, OR @ Mission Theater TICKETS 11/15 - San Francisco, CA @ Popscene at Brick & Mortar TICKETS 11/16 - Los Angeles, CA @ Barnsdall Gallery Theater TICKETS