Moriah Woods

'Human' 

How one songwriter is learning to use music to transform a journey of personal suffering into a deeper understanding of the world.

COLORADO, USA TO POLAND—American singer-songwriter Moriah Woods’ new album, Human (released December 16, 2022), introspectively challenges the complexities of the mind and human condition, and seeks to convey that in order to understand the world we must first understand ourself. 

As a follow-up to her 2019 album ‘Old Boy’, an intimate work dealing with the subjects of grief and mental illness, Woods felt a sense of responsibility to begin understanding the role of suffering through personal examination, laying the foundation for the journey into ‘Human’.

Beginning in 2020 Human went through many metamorphases and presented many challenges along the way. In the end 'Human' is presented in a way to sound; human. Imperfect, with a sense that this journey traveled through various phases of creativity and states of mind. As a perfectionist, this era presented Woods with the opportunity of learning about letting go. 

"The lockdown became the perfect time to turn to creation - but I encountered one big problem - the more I forced it out of desperation to regain some purpose, the more unsatisfied I was with the result.

I Inevitably hitting a wall, I stopped everything and went to Peru to go inward and work with plant medicine. With this distance I was able to see that I had been focusing on the result rather than the process, re-examining why I create in the first place. I’m simply home in the experience of dissolving into sound. I returned feeling regrounded but vulnerable - nervous to jump back in but I hit record, the result you hear in ‘Currents’."

Several inspirational humans have influenced the content of the album such as David Attenborough, Fred Rodgers, Dr. Anita Johnston and Ram Dass - whose talk is featured in 'What Goes Up' courtesy of Love Serve Remember Foundation

"By dissecting the inner workings of my own mind I’ve come to regard suffering as a vital and integral, if not, the most important part of my human experience thus far because I’m learning that within it lies the possibility of understanding a little more about the great mystery that is the human experience."

"In order to understand our rapidly declining world, I believe we first need to understand ourself."