Wollongong native Sam Saint Jones has unveiled his otherworldly debut record, A Man On The Moon.
The concept record deftly explores the emotional minefield of ending an engagement. A dissection of turmoil and uncertainty that is painful, forgiving and ultimately, uplifting.
“Conceptually this album was created accidentally. Although I also think that the self-sabotaging artist in me knew there would be a good story to come from my decisions eventually,” Sam Saint Jones explains of the record. “The songs were written as catharsis or a meditation to get me through the hardest period of my life.”
He continues, “These song’s are my pain, my anger, my grief, my heartbreak, my gratitude, my depression, my joy and my happiness all wrapped up into fifty minutes of digital wavelength. It is my light and my love amplified. Looking back on this period of time I realised that there was a specific linear narrative in the songs. You could watch the entire healing process of grief unfold when you lined up the songs in a particular way.”
Check out ‘Waking Nightmare’ by Sam Saint Jones
The emotional heft of the record is masqueraded by a rich, twinkly indie-pop veneer. At surface level, A Man On The Moon, is breezy and warm. The sonic lightness acts as the perfect tonic to cut through all the thorny, abject feelings one is riddled with in the aftermath of a profound heartbreak.
“I read the lyrics and saw myself going through all of the stages of Grief: Shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining and depression but eventually there is upward turn,” Sam elaborate. “Reconstruction and working through, Acceptance, Hope and finally New Love. It was astounding how clearly the story came across to me.”
