More about: MUNA

Los Angeles-based trio MUNA, made of Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin have officially announced hot queer summer with their huge, career defining album – MUNA.

Their third, self-titled, record is the trio’s most vulnerable and impactful entry in their discography yet, continually pushing their sound to untested limits. MUNA is largely pop prowess at its best, dipping its toes into hyperpop, country and reaching out in every direction settling in a genreless, boundary breaking space feeling completely self-assured.

The breakout single, ‘Silk Chiffon’, opens the record featuring the band’s new label head, Phoebe Bridgers, with a glittering bastion of queer acceptance, hope and dreaming. ‘Silk Chiffon’ rightly found itself high on countless publications’ best of 2021 lists and became a TikTok sensation. An unexpected track of relentless joy and bliss from a band self-described as ‘three of the most depressed people you could ever come into contact with’- and from Bridgers, who is hardly known for having an upbeat sound.

‘What I Want’ follows with massive synth, giving it a huge Robyn floor-filler vibe. Whilst the whole album screams for queer liberation and acceptance, as MUNA have for their whole existence, but this track is the one. It’s relatable for every queer person who lost time in their years of questioning, or those who lost time in the pandemic. Gavin calls out for their own self-assurance with ‘that’s what I want, there’s nothing wrong with what I want!’ in a massive swell each chorus, after reflecting on the lost years we can all understand.

The band show their range throughout, ‘Kind of Girl’, a slower, stripped back track exploring other facets of queer existence, ‘Anything But Me’ dives into some country style acoustic guitar and explores leaving a relationship you already knew had expired, but of forcing yourself to stay for far too long. ‘Handle Me’ explores being too much for people to understand and contain in a relationship and the albums closing track, ‘Shooting Star’, pulls it all back for an all revealing track bubbling into a big crescendo.

MUNA have created an album that embodies the queer existence in such a beautiful manner. It’s a record for the (maybe) first ‘post-COVID’ summer of release, of rediscovery of who we used to be, maybe discovering who we’ve become now. MUNA is for a summer of forming new relationships, friendships and whatever may fall in between. It’s a record for those finally able to embrace their queerness without a two-metre distance, those who have had to hide themselves over the pandemic, those who have longed for these moments of freedom and satisfaction. MUNA have created a sanctuary of their own, for us to get lost in or to find home in on the dancefloor or in our bedrooms.

With a collection of bangers, slow tunes and refreshing melodies, MUNA are magic. They’ve created a space for all to lose themselves into for a little while, whether to dance or cry, they’re here to carve through the monotony and troubles of daily life and transport us to a different, brighter, louder, prouder, and safer place.

MUNA arrives June 24

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: MUNA