Annie Mondegreen Confronts Emotional Detachment on 'Alkaline'

Frankfurt-based songwriter and traveling musician Annie Mondegreen has been playing guitar since she was ten and writing her own tunes since fourteen, usually tracking songs wherever her travels take her, from Aix-en-Provence to Timișoara. With 'Alkaline', pulled from her upcoming six-track EP 'Eclipse Era', she steps away from stripped-back acoustic setups to explore darker, rhythm-led territory.

Cut at Urchin Studios in London alongside multi-instrumentalist Jim Wallis, the session leaned on a live rhythm section, with Wallis laying down drums, bass, piano, and extra guitar parts before handing the tracks over to Pieter De Wagter at EQuS Audio Mastering in Belgium. Across the EP, the arrangements move between finger-picked acoustic parts, strummed chords, electric guitar, and percussion, often starting out as quiet voice-and-guitar takes before climbing to heavier peaks. On 'Alkaline', tagged as the project's most pop-adjacent track, that movement is pushed by guitar, bass, and drums that give the song a steady pulse.

Writing about the messy parts of depression, Mondegreen focuses on the points where feeling anything becomes difficult and staying connected to other people feels out of reach. Instead of stripping everything back to bare wood and cold reverb, she deliberately pairs the subject with warmer tones. It fits into the broader frame of 'Eclipse Era', an EP built around one-sided connections, obsession, and the fallout of choosing your own road even when it means leaving someone behind.

By letting the drums and bass drive the pace without turning it into theater, 'Alkaline' stays focused and grounded. It marks an honest step in Mondegreen's catalog, taking the guitar-led writing she built on the road into a full studio room.