Known for their catchy beats and unforgettable vocals, Moodbay are a North East electro-pop duo consisting of singer-songwriter Anna Stephens and writer and producer, Alfie Cattell.
After meeting in the corridor of BIMM in Manchester, Anna and Alfie combined their musical talents to create Moodbay. Blending a wide range of different genres to create their own personal sound, the duo have coined their own musical style as ‘moodpop’.
This April saw Moodbay release their second single of the year, ‘Video Games’, a tongue-in-cheek track written about life in lockdown throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.
“Lockdown has freed us up to experiment more with different approaches to writing and different genres too,” Anna noted.
“We’ve found ourselves listening to artists we hadn’t before, such as Clairo. We’re really vibing the production on her songs and have been inspired to do something more stripped-back next”.
While plenty of artists were creating lockdown-inspired pieces on a variety of different topics from loneliness to optimism, Moodbay focused on the theme of video games and the art of distraction.
“I’ve always been a fan of gaming (the closest Anna gets to gaming is Sims 4),” Alfie joked.
“We just decided to write something tongue-in-cheek and a lot of our friends were hitting the game consoles when lockdown started as a way of adjusting to life without any gigs or anything to go to. We use samples from some retro games too to add a sense of humour to the track. It’s just something that happened, really. I grew up playing Zelda and Mario Kart,” he explained.
Despite not being able to perform the track live for fans in person, the duo performed and streamed a live set on Facebook which had over a thousand viewers. They’ve also been keeping up with fans via their own blog where they’ve been sharing anecdotes and other thoughtful pieces.
Now they’re back again with another two singles, titled ‘I Got You’ and ‘Like Nobody Else’. Both written and produced before lockdown, Alfie explained that the melodies actually came to mind while sitting in Greggs.
Released on July 10th, ‘I Got You’ is an easy-listening dance track for summer. And ‘Like Nobody Else’, released on 24th July, is a bit different – more upbeat and indie than earlier tracks.
While it’s hard to plan ahead right now in the live events world, it certainly will be a treat to eventually see these new songs performed live.
To find out more about Moodbay, head to facebook.com/moodbay.
