Mug The Well

Berlin-based duo Mug present their debut album 'The Well'. With a range of influences from no-wave, shoe-gaze, rock, and ambient, “Mug’s” emotional rawness refracts through a lens of spectral soundscapes and austere textures.
Intimate and sincere, 'The Well' is about licking your wounds after a breakup, finding light within the cracks and letting it grow.
Ludwig Wandinger and Yves B Golden began their musical collaborations based on mutual respect and interest in each artist's vastly different backgrounds. Golden grew up singing in her grandmother’s pentecostal church, but is known widely for published essays and poetry. Wandinger, is an internationally acclaimed drummer, music producer and visual artist, interacting in various fringe music scenes.
What began as long distance collaborations released under various outlets such as Caterina Barbieri´s light years, Wandinger and Golden, now living in the same city, morphed into a protracted exploration of songwriting and improvisation, a process defined by immediacy and unfiltered expression: “first thought, best thought.”
“The Well” begins where their sessions started. “Skin Colored Room”, a moody reflection on displacement and reorientation, is the liminal space where Wandinger and Golden formalize their ongoing conversation. Golden’s voice is fragile, but slowly becomes more clear and pronounced like melody and the guitar. From there springs two distinct energies for the rest of the album. Songs like the impetuous title track and “Inverted Bouquet” stem from unbridled, grunge-inspired ruminations, while “Silver and Gold” and “Fully Forked Tongue” - which were recorded last, hence their placement on the album - indulge listeners in intimate, diary-like lyrics and sparse instrumentation.
Though “The Well” marks the first release from this impulse driven duo, this album promises an ongoing evolution, or discovery, wherein genre specificity is inconsequential.