REVIEW: MAYA HAWKE - MOSS

4/5

Hawkeye.

Stranger things have happened in volumes this year, but still it's been Maya Hawke's calendar in 2022. Especially this month. She gave us scoops of her talent stealing the show in Netflix's most successful streaming series, outside of South Korea, back in 2019. All whilst finding the soul of Steve Harrington. But now? Ahoy! The daughter of the great 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Kill Bill' legend, Uma Thurman and indie darling Dad, Ethan Hawke (who recently made a major Marvel mainstream move with 'Moon Knight'), is giving us a 'Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood' moment after that classic cameo. Netflix again saw her 'Do Revenge' last week, and today she finally releases her eagerly-anticipated follow-up to her 2020 debut album 'Blush', after 'To Love A Boy' in 2019 showed us she could do more than serve soft scoops. 

Now gathering 'MOSS' unlike a rolling stone, Kate, revenge is a dreamy dish best served in a floaty bliss. After our love and country surrendered to Maggie Rogers' latest, we now have another rich tapestry from a young queen who would be Carole King. Inspired by the 'Folklore' of Taylor Swift, who this fall will give us the late night oil of the 'Midnights' blues for all you faithful hearts who can't get no sleep. 'MOSS' is mesmerizing. Just like 'Thérèse'. The lead single off this Mom + Pop product (nothing to do with her proud parents of fellow fame). Inspired by another artist, Balthus' painting 'Thérèse Dreaming' at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. One the young Hawke instantly connected with upon viewing, gazing in the gallery with reverie. Identified with the subject in the portrait, who Maya described as "who in my head is me". An inspired lead single of depth and nuance the mainstream normally doesn't cater for. 

Long Pond Studios serve as the launching pad for a sound that is described as a "meditation" on "rebirth and acceptance". And we really are seeing a second career being born from someone we immediately accepted the first time we saw her face behind the counter in the ice cream parlour, thinking she looked familiar. Although she made her own name as Jo March with the in BBC's own take on the literary classic 'Little Women'. Available on a limited edition, pink translucent vinyl from the hip Urban Outfitters, the second single from 'MOSS' is just as candy coated with the old commercial video seeing this small-screen sensation take a trip to the dentist after love has given her more cavities than wall insulation. "I'm grateful for everything you put me through/It's the only reason I'm any good to talk to/When I'm sick or suffering, I'll still call you/About my big, sore sweet tooth." 

Singing for Uma like Fall Out Boy and all of us who love bad movies too on 'Sweet Tooth' as she tells us (she), "Told my mother that I love her/And that I'd lie to the accountant if she wants/I'll do whatever to protect her/I'll say anything just to make her stop/I saw a movie everybody hated ('Morbius'?)/In an empty theatre in Duluth/Swear I really loved it (me too) /Love is such a better thing to do." And it really is. The third and latest single 'Luna Moth' will also attract you to this star's shine and effervescent flame. 

But it's the opening 'Backup Plan' and the closing 'Mermaid Bar' that passes it and shows you the scales of this young but anything but little woman's growth and genius. Hiding perplexing pain in what looks like a romantic ballad. Showing strength in the solidarity of self for words on the contrary that are anything but coerced. "Light a fire, live without it/Have a dark thought and tell me all about it/Your backup plan, your best man/Your torrid affair, your long hair", she's no backup plan. Instead, "anything you've lost that you might be lookin' for". You, too, will find it as well. 

'Bloomed Into Blue' for another beautiful blush that just takes you away, this 'MOSS' is a sweet as the due of a summer residue on fall foliage. "I like your weird clothes, your needy demeanour/I like your days off and your key carabiner/I like your big head, your little taut body/I like your fine threads and your ridiculous hobbies", Maya loving laments on a track that takes a 'Hiatus' of the pretensions of modern love for the singer one birthday shy of her quarter-century. Will Graefe also joins her on the grateful 'Crazy Kid' for a dreamy duet, written in the young stars. 

'South Elroy' takes us even further, like Montauk. "When we fought and we f##### and we fought/I always took your side/Now I'm waitin' out this fever/I dream you're sliding quarters into the parkin' meter/A little more time in your beat-up black Mercedes." This is Springsteen drive-time dreams, born to love in the car Janis Joplin asked God for. All the way to the amends made for the 'Driver' in this R.E.M. dream. "Writing's too slow/Talking's too fast/Lately real low/Lies at last/Oh dear, my dear/Get in all your licks/I'll string my words/Something will stick", Hawke harmonizes on the 'Sticky Little Words' that sound a lot like 'I love you'. 

Scratching through the soil for the depth of a higher, forever love, she sings, "Empty, empty, I'm not empty, this bud keeps a bee/Like what you see, but it won't be pretty, pretty/I want my smile weak and wrong/My arms and legs real strong/I want my skin to fall, stretch long/I want my mind fresh, even when my body's rotten/I want to know more than you have forgotten/I'm not your flower, I'm the pollen." She reminds us of the time young loves dream didn't wake up. And it could still last in this here morning after. "I see it, though, I do, in the turning of your mind/I see the things you think, your electric body beside", she devoted in an ode to the malaise of the same midnight hour we are about to be taken swiftly to by Taylor in further folklore. 

Hawking her best work and year yet, Maya moves us with her music. In one song she references a Wilhelm scream like this art was Star Wars, between some Baz Luhrmann sunscreen. But always wearing her heart on her sleeve, there is nothing artificial or canned here for special effect. On Hawke's second act, she gives us her greatest role. One that doesn't require a performance off a script, but the genuine poetic prose of her innermost longings. 'MOSS' is marvellous. It's enough to make a grown-man blush. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Bloomed Into Blue', 'Sweet Tooth', 'Driver'.