There are, and always will be, times in your life where everything is so consequential. Each decision is final, each moment leads you to another, and each conversation feels like life and death. A lover left in the dust, a bottle of peroxide, and a dream: what more could you want from a pivotal moment? Welcome To My Blue Sky, the fourth record from the LA-born, Brooklyn-based indie rock group Momma, led by Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, tells the story of one such tumultuous summer. Both Friedman and Weingarten experienced these significant changes concurrently, referring to this period as one of “parallel chaos.” Over gritty guitar lines, Friedman and Weingarten sing about their simultaneous self-destruction, conquering fears, and sitting in the discomfort of young adult growing pains together. It’s an album that aches with the urgency of being twenty-something, when everything feels like it might fall apart (or come together) at any second.

Does anyone ever grow and still stay the same? Following the success of their third album, Household Name, Welcome To My Blue Sky marks a sonic diversion, with production finely tuned for a car stereo with the windows down. Friedman and Weingarten aren’t ones to do the same thing twice, and they lean into that instinct here, pushing their sound into a brighter, more expansive register without losing the emotional grit that made their earlier work resonate. Even in its most polished moments, the album maintains a pulsing heart of restlessness, marking an inevitable and electrifying evolution.

Still, as summer turns into fall, some things can’t help but linger on. Since the original release, Momma's had time to ruminate on tour, and the band is ready for a revisit. Enter Welcome To My Blue Sky (Deluxe Edition), out via Polyvinyl Record Co. and Luckyvinyl on November 14. This release continues the story and adds depth and color to the original 12-track LP. With five new tracks—four album b-sides and one cover of Elliott Smith’s “Christian Brothers”—the band bridges into more vulnerable and intimate territory. They confess hard truths and confront the pieces of themselves left over after the storm. The deluxe edition feels like an exhale after the chaos. It is a moment to look back, sift through the debris, and find meaning in what remains.

Read below for our conversation with Momma: 

‍Welcome To My Blue Sky told the story of a beautiful, turbulent summer. With the deluxe edition, what stories do you tell? Is it an epilogue, or something else entirely?

‍Momma: There’s a bit of an epilogue with certain tracks (Cross Your Heart, Sunrise), but I honestly feel like the deluxe edition primarily captures these sketches and ideas of WTMBS before we were fully locked in on what we wanted the final product to say and sound like. 

‍Which songs on the record are you most excited to share with the world?

‍Etta Friedman: I’m excited to share our individual tracks. When Allegra first played Seattle for me, I was genuinely moved to tears. It’s emotionally so powerful and full of so much heart. Sunrise is the first love song I wrote for my girlfriend before we started dating and before I even had an inkling that we would end up together. This track was the basis of “How to Breathe,” and it was also written during the big summer tour that WTMBS is all about.

This album is a reckoning of co-processing of big changes and emotions. What changes when you’re in the trenches with someone by your side, rather than alone?

‍Friedman: Confidence. I mean, making a huge life shift is not an easy thing to tackle - even if it’s ultimately for your own happiness. Being able to have Allegra as a sound board gave me the confidence to follow my heart, and it reassured me that I’m not an absolutely terrible person. As per usual, we were really just in it together.

‍You’ve been covering “Christian Brothers” by Elliott Smith since high school. What made you want to formally record it for this release?

‍Momma: I think that song is just ultimately a testament to our sisterhood because there’s so many memories that are attached to the track. Although WTMBS discusses romance, it also speaks to the bond the two of us have. Taking it right back to the beginning with “Christian Brothers” felt like a great full circle moment. Plus, I’m happy we finally have our version to listen to.

‍Two of the softer, more intimate moments on the reissue are “Sunrise” and “Seattle,” both solo acoustic numbers recorded live. Could you talk about the backstories of these songs, and why you decided to record them live?

‍Friedman: Sunrise was the first love song I wrote for my girlfriend after pulling an all-nighter at a venue in Birmingham, Alabama. We weren’t dating yet, nor did we know we would end up together, but it was a really magical night that sealed in my head that I was really falling for her. That period of time kind of felt like I was living in a vacuum, though. We were traveling on our first “real” tour, and being disconnected and far away from my friends back home. Everything was changing for me, and it was really confusing. I think you can hear that in the lyrics of Sunrise. These tracks were recorded live to try to capture the rawness that each of these songs naturally have. I don’t know if either of these were ever meant to be recorded with a full band, or without the basic tracking of just us in a room with an acoustic guitar—it was meant to be recorded just like how it was written. 

‍Weingarten: Seattle was a really scary song to record. It’s about a fragmented relationship with my sister, and her relationship with her boyfriend. I wrote most of the lyrics on a plane to Seattle to visit her. I remember the first time I played it for Etta they cried, and I knew it was something I didn’t want to let go of but it didn’t necessarily have a place on the record. I think it’s perfect as a B-Side because it was written during the same time period that WTMBS was written, and serves really well as just an acoustic song.

‍The production and sound of this album is a diversion from your previous record. What inspired the change?

‍Momma: First and foremost, we did not want to recreate the same sound as last time - that’s kind of boring to us. As we grow up, as our music evolves, as our tastes evolve, as we discover new things, I think it’s natural that the production and sound of our songs would grow with us too. 

‍“Cross Your Heart” was one of the first songs written for Welcome to My Blue Sky but didn’t make the original cut. How does it feel to finally release it, and does it mean something different to you now?

Momma: We’ve always loved this song, so it feels great to have it out in the world. I think coming back to revisit it was an interesting process in terms of having to re-enter the WTMBS writing headspace that we left over a year ago at this point. I’m not sure if it means something entirely different, more than it’s a kind of strange process to try to step back into the mindset of where we were years ago. 

‍You’ve been on tour for a little over six months now—how have these songs changed in your mind since taking them on the road?

Momma: It’s really hard for us to gauge who our audience even is, honestly, but playing these songs has shown me that our music reaches a wider range of individuals than I would’ve ever expected. That alone is really surreal and touching. We feel blessed that we get to shed a bit of ourselves publicly, and people are not just receptive, but they relate to what we have to say. 

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