The Sweden-based producer and singer-songwriter Mountain Bird delivers quite the intriguing concept through his recent single, "Something Wrong With My Mind."
Gearing up to release his long-awaited EP, 'Once We Were Present,' Mountain Bird analyzes the intoxicating and toxic effects of the internet age. Exploring the abusive and addictive relationships with social media, Mountain Bird mentioned, "I hope these songs show people that the internet is a tool we must respect and that we shouldn't be embracing it at the expense of enjoying our youth."
Taking on a more enthusiastic approach with the EP's lead single, "Something Wrong With My Mind," Mountain Bird stated that the song surrounds turning down the 'digital noise' when falling asleep and timidly facing the feelings kept at bay with help from social media's 'mental fast food.'
Diving into the lead single, "Something Wrong With My Mind," an expansive synth arrangement and melodic keys open the piece while fueling the atmosphere with nothing but enthusiasm and energy. Mountain Bird later begins singing the trials and tribulations of feeling compelled to scroll through social media for hours on end to flee from his day-to-day turmoil.
Despite Mountain Bird's reflective and emotional lyricism, the song's sonics push through with all the energy and shimmer we need to get us through our cyclical days. When speaking about the single, Mountain Bird mentioned, "If one person can feel stronger to discuss their fears around cultivating an online identity or free themselves from digital pressures by listening to my song, then my mission is complete," and that's precisely what's happened here.
Get to know Mountain Bird's imperative single, "Something Wrong With My Mind," on all streaming platforms, and prepare yourself for more mind-boggling topics throughout his EP 'Once We Were Present' on April 2nd.
We can't stress enough how important the message is within your recent single, "Something Wrong With My Mind." What inspired you to create this single surrounding the toxic effects of social media?
I wanted to talk about something else than just writing love songs or songs about dancing. The most important thing was I wanted to talk about something that really affects me and my friend's mental health. I'm also a huge fan of Black Mirror and Westworld, which both discuss these important subjects in such a great way. I love the visuals from Black Mirror, especially the interactive one, "Bandersnatch", on Netflix. It also felt like a natural step since I've personally struggled with mental health all my life, with social anxiety and depression. So I wanted to take a step outside of my own life and reflect on the bigger picture. Regarding your lyricism within "Something Wrong With My Mind," what did you want your listeners to take away for themselves?
I want them all to embrace their "Craziness" and that it's not weird at all if you feel down or weak in this performance/growth-driven society. You're not just a part of a wheel that needs to go faster and faster. The companies want you to believe that of course, because feeling useless feeds growth. You're not beautiful enough so you buy expensive new face cream, or you don't have the best new clothes so you buy more. You feel happy for a couple of hours if you're lucky and then it's back to square one. Infinite spending. That's the whole concept. Growth actually feeds on our unhappiness. So I want people to learn that society is coded and structured around us just being happy enough, so we always want to "fix" something. When we learn that, we can look at things from a healthier perspective. Even though your lyricism within "Something Wrong With My Mind" is rather intense, what inspired the upbeat and lively sonic production? What was your sonic creative process like?
At the time I listened to a lot of Elderbrook. Chris Zane and I liked the concept of writing happy upbeat music to sad lyrics too. It's always a matter of contrasts and I really liked the idea of seeing the instrumental as the output of growth. Happy commercials not telling you exactly what they mean and then the lyricism is under the hood of the product. How does your forthcoming EP 'Once We Were Present' go deeper into themes of abusive and addictive relationships with social media?
As an artist in 2021, I've been forced down the hole of both growth numbers and advertisement. Some days it just feels like I only exist to people If I bring them more streams and better numbers. Lots of my friends feel this way and it all started with my track "Modern Man", which essentially includes one line on each issue humankind faces in 2021. That's why we released it as the first single because it discusses everything as a whole. So I would go and listen to that track to get the bigger picture.