[...] Which brings us to When I Was Young. Having released individual, almost standalone tracks for the last few years, this EP represents a proper body of work, covering songs written between 2014 and 2017 that pinpoint different moments in MØ's career so far. “Making the EP has been such a nice flashback experience because I forgot about the little things; how you put the songs together, the lyrics, the song titles and the artwork,” she explains. “Just being in the bubble of that energy is so fucking awesome. It's so amazing to be able to create a universe.” It's a universe that opens with the gently pulsating Roots, a sonic throwback to No Mythologies to Follow that was actually written a month before that album came out and was musically inspired by an unfinished song she'd made as part of a trip-hop band in 2011. “I remember when I wrote that song in February 2014 I said to myself 'this is going to be the first song from my new album', and I know this isn't my second album but in a way it felt so right,” she explains. Like the EP as whole it was executive produced by fellow Dane Vasco, who offered a unifying sound to the six tracks. Roots' slow-burn build is in contrast to the title track's cabaret-esque feel, the delicious horn breakdown drawing out the song's playful nostalgia (“and the holidays went on and on”). “We tried a lot of different things for that instrumental break, but that was what the song called for,” she laughs of its unexpected exuberance.
More sombre is Turn My Heart To Stone, which again utilises brass but to create a sadder sonic soundscape. It also showcases MØ's upper register on the melancholic chorus which flutters elegantly over popping beats. The EP's connection to MØ's more recent output – created with the likes of Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder and Noonie Bao – is the vibrant dance-pop of Linking With You, which reflects the EP's experimental practices in more ways than one. “That one was done with a UK producer called FTSE,” she says. “It was started by a group of songwriters I know who then forwarded it to me and I re-worked the lyrics so they properly fit into my world. I've never really done a song like that before.” Either way, whoever came up with the line “I can't come out to play, I'll be on my phone all day, scrolling all my time away” deserves a medal. Another older one is the clanking electronica of BB, which was written in late 2014. “I had just started seeing someone and I was so in love with him and scared he was going to leave me, so I did this song as a tribute to if he left me. But I'm still with him so it's fine,” she laughs. Closing the EP is the beautiful Runaway which sounds like one of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's quieter moments and was inspired by a short film her childhood best friend was making (incidentally it's the same friend who also inspired recent single Night With You, a collaboration with Benny Blanco, Cashmere Cat and SOPHIE). “It's really personal to me because it reminds me of my best friend and our childhood,” she says of Runaway. “It made sense for it to close the EP, with me daydreaming about my childhood and trying to figure things out.”
In a way that's what When I Was Young represents. It's an EP that needed to be made in order to move on from that first album and the “Lean On bubble” as she calls it, but it's also a fully realised body of work in and of itself. “These years have been a learning process about what's important, and that's what this EP reflects,” she says. “These songs were chosen instinctively, and by a gut feeling really, but they're all about both looking back and forward.” The future is very exciting indeed.
Roots and BB (Riot Gal) were written in 2014; executive producer is Dane Vasco (NWY Vasco Loves Vera remix); Runaway is a song/hymn for her friend from the childhood
Whole ep sounds like this remix
