God’s Mom is the collaboration between Producer/Filmmaker A. Matthews and Canadian artist, Bria Salmena – FRIGS’ frontwoman and until recently Orville Peck’s right-hand woman. The project sees the duo explore Electronica, from Ballroom to Bass, and mix it with tarantellas – the folk music from Bria’s Calabrian heritage.
The new album, As It Was Given, is out now exclusively via Nina with the pair inspired by Toronto’s Underground Club Culture on recent single, ‘Maddalena’. The seventeen track album varies from Euo Dance to Experimental while keeping Salmena’s point of view as the beating heart of the music. Loverboy caught up with Salmena to find out more…
Bria, it sounds like you have a couple of artistic endeavours on the boil. Why did you feel it was the right time to return to God’s Mom?
God’s Mom was always there, lurking in the background. Andrew and I have been consistently recording God’s Mom tracks while working in other projects for the past four years. I guess we felt that after so long it was time to unleash all of this material we have been working on in a way to move from this chapter of the project to the next. So to answer your question I didn’t return ’cause she was always there.
Maybe God’s Mom could be seen as the most different of your projects. What similarities do you see between FRIGS/Bria and God’s Mom both RE:your work but also between the Post-Punk/Rock genre and the Electronic side of things in general? Maybe there are more similarities between Country & Calabrese tarantellas?
I think sonically God’s Mom is the most different from all of the other projects I’ve been involved in however there is a very clear thread through all of them for me. There are obvious similarities in the way I perform God’s Mom and Frigs let’s say. So much of my creative expression is through performance and there is certainly a feeling I can only obtain while performing either of those projects. But I also see a lot of that in how I have been performing the new material of my solo project. God’s Mom is such a concept based group, borderline research project. Lol. It is character-based and exploratory of things outside of myself and my own experience. In a way I’m truly trying to take myself out of it. I think Frigs and my solo project are so much more introspective and far more vulnerable. There is a power in God’s Mom I can only harness because she represents so much more than me. Maybe that’s escapism. I don’t know. Tarantellas are essentially a style of Italian country music so I guess I just truly love folk music. Ha.
This album has been recorded between 2020-2024. So much has happened in that time, how did that affect things when trying to make a cohesive album?
I think the sort of creative process Andrew and I created for this project has been the same since its inception. And while it’s true so much happened over the past four years, ultimately when we came together to work on the project the intent was always the same. The way we recorded was always the same, the only thing that truly changed was the location. For us we can see the phases from one bedroom studio to another. Lyrically I can see how personal experiences infiltrated my interpretations of the tarantellas but ultimately I think we were able to remain true to the intention and keep it cohesive.
Both Bria and God’s Mom feel like they have such strong identities in their respective countries. I imagine being in Italy and performing music inspired by Calabrese tarantellas must be amazing. How does your feeling performing as Bria in the US and then as God’s Mom in Italy compare? Your feeling / the audience’s response…
The only time God’s Mom played in Italy was in 2021 and it was also our very first show ever. It was so strange. We were in Bologna during covid so everyone in the audience was required to sit during our set. Which truly sucked, but by the end some German tourists got up and started dancing. So I guess I’ll have a better answer after our first Italian tour.
And so we come to the album! As It Was Given. First up, seventeen tracks! We are blessed! Did you have any reservations about putting so much on one album? Why did you feel all these songs had to make the cut?
We think we should have put more, make it a nice round twenty. We felt like after four years we needed to move this project into the next phase/chapter. I wanna go deeper and figure out how we can really dig into understanding the balance of the kind of electronic music we want to make while honouring these tarantellas and old voices. As It Was Given is a collection of really some of our favourite works we’ve ever done. But there is so much more beyond that even now. We also just wanted to give people too much, make them overwhelmed. I doubt most will get through the entire record, but if you do you’re a G and have my full respect.
How did you go about sequencing the album? It works beautifully.
Honestly that is all Andrew, I’m shit at that kind of thing. I just knew I wanted ‘Brava Ragazza’ first.
I hear Trance, Rave, Industrial, House and more all present. Which genres did you set out to explore and which happened organically?
I think initially we wanted to make experimental music, and then said ‘Fuck it, let’s make House music.’ Then we just wanted to make some sort of hybrid Euro Dance tracks. Truthfully it all happened organically, ’cause sometimes we just wanted to make ballads like ‘Piano Piano’ or ‘Oh Love Do You Remember’. We just have ADHD.
I’m writing these questions early this morning so I’m sure that will shape my favourites. But I really love the Vogue/House vibes of ‘Dallo A Me’. This feels like it has to be a single right? Can you tell us about choosing this genre and the song?
You might just have to wait and find out if it’s a single…. We made ‘Dallo’ in 2021 and wanted to make a kind of Vogue-esque anthem. We had done something similar with another track that didn’t make the album. I think ‘Dallo’ also was a turning point for us where we really felt like the character of God’s Mom broke out a little. At that point it was our most ‘assertive’ song to date. I think I was channelling everything I love about drag and drag queens and thinking of who God’s Mom was within that. ‘Dallo’ helped realize that for me.
‘Nessuna Sorpresa’ talks about men’s jealousy. I love it because, for me, living in Spain, one of the things everyone says here is they don’t want someone jealous. What’s been your experience culturally of jealousy? How does it compare between North America and Italy?
I mean, jealously is at its core so harmful to the person feeling it. I think in a big way it circles back to the idea of possession. And truly that’s what they are talking about in ‘Nessuna Sopresa’. What you hear in this track is from field research of how everyday life was for women who come from my family’s region. That sample is the reason why this project exists. God’s Mom is a vessel and a way for me to give a voice to all my female relatives and ancestors whose entire existence was governed by not only the men of her family and community but that of the church and state. Even now on a recent trip to my father’s hometown my value was seen lesser than ’cause I’m not married. In the time that that sample no women in my lineage had any autonomy, freedom of speech or sexual freedom let alone power over their own body. The ‘jealous’ aspect of that sound bite is power, it’s control. I wanna take that power back.
‘Maddalena’ is inspired by the Underground Toronto scene. I know Toronto has a massive Queer scene too right?
I’m extremely grateful to have lived in Toronto where there is such an amazing queer community. Those of which were the first real supporters and fans of God’s Mom. So much of this project is just about freedom of sexuality and expression so I think naturally we were accepted and appreciated by that community I get to be a part of. We wanted to make music that we would want to hear played at our own raves and parties.
Listening to ‘Perche Non Mi Ami’, I literally wrote floating through the sky. Then the next track is ‘Il Vento’ so that worked well. Can you tell us about these two track and what inspired them
‘Perche Non Mi Ami’ is a true heartbreak song, written during a very dark period of my life personally. I think that’s why people react to it so strongly. Truly it came from a depth I don’t even like to talk about. ‘Il Vento’ could be considered the very first God’s Mom track, it also relates to heartbreak but definitely a sweeter interpretation of it. The lyrics of that song were written by myself and our friend Maria Di Stefano while driving from Nice to Marseille in 2020.
Lastly we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001 and always ask, what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
Omg. It’s a huge toss up between ‘Honey’ and ‘Everything Fades Away’. I just grew up with ‘Honey’ playing on a boombox on repeat as a little girl. ‘Everything Fades Away’ is a bit of a deeper cut, but just such a classic diva ballad that changes from minor to major in such a satisfying way. What a queen.
The album As It Was Given is available to stream and purchase now via www.ninaprotocol.com
Main image: Jacopo Paglione
