Photo by: Gareth Rhys
Receiving broad support from radio and British folk favourites, and receiving funding from the PRS Foundation, Help Musicians and Horizons Launchpad, Rona Mac has become a tastemaker rising star since her 2020 debut.
Bringing authenticity to her music, writing and recording in her caravan studio, and taking pride in her DIY roots, Rona captures the ineffable pieces of love, loss and mental health in her music, refining her songwriting to a place of purity and poetry.
With her latest album Honeymilk & Heavy Weather, Rona ties in the beauty and the pain of losing a close friend, focussing on the quality of emotional portrayal, she leaves the production raw and natural, blending acoustic folk with warming keys and lo-fi drums.
Rona harnesses a deeply connected power, losing herself in the music and allowing her creativity to grasp the result. Though the project is shrouded in grief, Rona brings a painfully necessary optimism and light to her words, the album honours life, reflecting on its light, not its disappearance. Honeymilk & Heavy Weather is a project that grasps your heart and leaves its mark.
Exploring the deep emotional connection between artist and album, Rona shares, “Throughout the album there are scattered recordings of voice notes and spoken word pieces that she sent me over the years, varying from her sing-song happy voice, to the deep-chested voice of a woman carrying a world of pain. It was a big decision to share these with listeners, but in the context of the album as a whole it would feel incomplete without her husk in there.
This album is also tied to some incredible friendships. We shared the very best and worst together and learnt about the furthest corners of platonic love and loss, as we have grieved many people in recent years. I have reached deeply into the veins of these shared feelings: the beauty in the light and the grime of the darkness; the rugged joy of fireside howling and swimming in your clothes; self-destruction and group repair; blurred lines of love and who cares anyway; an immeasurable amount of raucous joy; of listening to sad songs together and feeling the weight lift.”
‘Honeymilk & Heavy Weather’ is out now:
