Molly Parden Joins Victor Mucho on 'so terribly hurt'

Victor Mucho, a new solo project from Brian Macdonald of the multi-Platinum band Judah & the Lion, is joined by fellow Nashville singer/songwriter Molly Parden on his new single "so terribly hurt." FLOOD Magazine premiered the track this morning, saying, "On the new single, Mucho and Parden confront the complications of love between two different perspectives.

Here, love is much more than butterflies in your stomach and elation. Over braided mandolins and cozy acoustic guitar, the two weather the heavy relationship winds in hopes they'll make it out of the storm...It's a felt performance that contends with the lush, expanding background of artists like Saintseneca or Bowerbirds."

"so terribly hurt" is from Victor Mucho's recently announced debut LP, Moonlight in Visby, which was produced by Swedish Grammy-nominee Tobias Fröberg (Peter Bjorn and John, Ane Brun) and will release on May 13, 2022 via Tone Tree Music. The 13-track set was written and recorded while living on the remote island of Gotland, Sweden in the Baltic Sea. It pays homage to the tiny, rural town Macdonald, his wife Maddie, and their dog Halyard called home during a year of seclusion and reflection. The visual for "so terribly hurt" is compiled from footage filmed throughout their time in Visby.

Of the new single, Victor Mucho offers, "'so terribly hurt' was written & recorded in the middle of a dark, Swedish winter. This song embodies the cold, lonely side of Love. The person who you love most is also the person you are capable of hurting the most. I am honored to have my friend, Molly Parden, singing verse two on the song. Her voice brings a transcendent and ethereal quality to a vulnerable moment in the album."

Moonlight in Visby was not initially intended to be an album, but simply songwriting as a means for Victor Mucho to process the feeling of isolation in an unfamiliar, closed-in world. He brought his mandolin to Sweden, and upon arrival, bought an old guitar from a woman on the island. The guitar turned out to be his songwriting vessel, his mandolin added natural texture to the recordings, and the eerie vastness of the island was his muse. The songs came to life in a dark, seaside adjacent bedroom, at times lit by the moon, other times by only a candle. Its window faced 221º SW, straight towards his home in Nashville.

In Visby, Victor Mucho found himself in a secluded bubble surrounded every day by artifacts spanning eons. He walked streets bordered by centuries-old medieval defense walls and Viking ruins. He uncovered the ancient lives of fossils among the smooth stone beaches. He learned to surf the unforgiving, cold, and stormy Baltic waves.

He camped on the neighboring sheep island of Fårö, once home to the legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, whose bleak outlook of the world seems founded by the rigid lithic landscape of the island. Through each moment, a new piece of Moonlight in Visby was forged, becoming an accidental soundtrack to stillness and isolation.

With Judah & the Lion, Macdonald has spent nearly a decade making chart-topping Alternative folk-rock with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Conan, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and more. Their latest record was described by NPR Music as "building, storming, banjos flying...there's so much energy and velocity to these songs," with Rolling Stone praising the "arena-sized arrangement of acoustic strums, processed vocal samples and booming electronics."

As Victor Mucho, Macdonald has peeled back a new layer of what he has to offer musically: intimate, soul-baring sonic textures that vividly capture the vastness and isolation of an idyllic, yet harsh, landscape.

Listen to the new single here: