Chill-Pop Artist Mokita shares “Color Me In” + Announces ‘Color Me In’ EP out October 28th via Nettwerk
September 30, 2022 BY Jason Currell
Nashville singer-songwriter-producer Mokita (aka John-Luke Carter) announces his forthcoming EP Color Me In out October 28th via Nettwerk. The announcement arrives with the title-track single and a visualizer shot and edited by Zach Pigg.
“Color Me In” hinges on airy beats and sparkling keys. In addition, Mokita’s tender yet powerful vocals glide over a gentle, soulful pop production. Consisting of several layers of mandolins, a high-strung guitar, a fretless bass, and syncopated drum pattern, the track’s sonic arrangements are warm, engaging, and cinematic. From a lyrical standpoint, “Color Me In” is about not only searching for meaning, but searching for fullness. A recurring theme for Mokita’s John-Luke Carter’s life outside of his music pursuits, “Color Me In” serves as a vital piece to his ever-evolving catalog and a brilliant showcase of his chameleon approach to crafting music.
Mokita shares this about “Color Me In”: “Jon Foreman, one of my favorite songwriters, has a line from a song called ‘Thrive’ that says: ‘I want to thrive, not just survive’. That line envelops the general sentiment of this song. One of my greatest fears has always been normalcy. I’ve always felt that in order to be worth something, that I needed to stand out; that I needed to exceed people’s expectations. The last line of the chorus says ‘tell me I’m a shade that’s never been found’. We all want to feel like we matter, like we are unique, that we have something to offer. We also want to know that we are not alone in feeling ‘messed up’ or lost. Everyone’s greatest search in life is finding the thing that fills them to the utmost. Everyone wants to be fully colored in.”
“Color Me In” follows Mokita’s previous 2022 singles “Happiness,” “Crash ft. Charlotte Sands,” and “Room For Another.” “Crash,” which was accompanied by a music video, has capitulated to over 1.2M Spotify streams since being released in June.
When asked about the meaning behind the EP, Mokita revealed: “This EP is really just about growing up. I’ve been sober for the past 3 years, so I feel like a lot of the songs I had been writing were tied up into trying to figure out what it looks like to really live life to the fullest. I had started looking at a lot of the questions that I had been putting off for most of my life. ‘Color Me In’, ‘Figure Me Out’ and ‘Happiness’ are all sort of an amalgamation of those thoughts and are steeped in some deeper content that I haven’t really written about before. I had written about depression and breakups and anxiety a lot before this batch of songs, but I really love writing about the things I’m going through currently. One of the things that was tough for me when I first quit drinking was just trying to figure out how to spend my nights. You get in the habit of going out every night and then all of sudden when you quit doing that you realize you don’t know what to do. I was just bored. So, I started reading a lot more and actually diving into what I believed, who I wanted to be as a person and really chased after that. I wanted to be able to write about my doubts just as I wanted to write about things I knew for certain. Most of this EP was born out of conversations. There is so much about life that I don’t have figured out, and that is where most of the songwriting inspiration came from. A lot of my approach to writing these songs was new to me, and so I wanted to get out of my comfort zone when it came to production as well. Since a lot of the lyrical content was a little deeper, I wanted the songs to feel more intimate and personal.”
On the heels of next month’s EP release, Mokita will be supporting indie rock band Augustana on select dates in November for their “Everyday an Eternity Tour.”
“Color Me In” is available at all digital retailers: https://mokita.ffm.to/
“Color Me In” visualizer here: https://youtu.be/03Y56DYZw0A
Mokita – “Color Me In” EP Tracklist:
1. Color Me In
2. Figure Me Out
3. Crash (ft. Charlotte Sands)
4. Happiness
Tour Dates:
*supporting Augustana
11/1: Charlotte, NC @ Evening Muse*
11/2: Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle*
11/3: Atlanta, GA @ City Winery*
11/11: Franklin, TN @ Franklin Theatre*
About Mokita:
Much like a living being with a heartbeat of its own, music naturally morphs for Mokita. The Nashville-based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer aka John-Luke Carter channels the energy of these fluctuations into his artistry. Floating freely between pop, folk, alternative, and indie, he fearlessly embraces his creative inclinations, presenting a personal and poignant sound in the process.
“I always want to switch it up,” he notes. “I don’t want to do the same thing for every song. I don’t want to follow the same formula over and over again. I’m not afraid to challenge myself. It helps me continue to grow. In the past, a lot of my songs were inspired by breakups. This time, I dove deeper into questions I’ve been wrestling with about spirituality and life. I’m at a different spot. The project came out of this new season.”
Hailing from Asheville, NC, John-Luke absorbed a passion for music through his parents. Mom sang, and dad played guitar in addition to serving as a pastor. At six-years-old, John-Luke started taking piano lessons. During middle school, he picked up a guitar for “the classic reason—to impress a girl,” he laughs. Visiting the library, he spent countless hours listening to CDs, consuming everything from Led Zeppelin and Def Leppard to John Mayer as well as Top 40. Playing music throughout college, he landed in Nashville to focus on his songwriting. He constantly grinded behind-the-scenes. In addition to co-writing “Summer Feeling” for Matoma & Jonah Kagen, “idk where i’m at rn” for Gavin Haley, “Throwing Punches” for Chaz Cardigan, and more, he shined on a series of collaborations, including “Take It Back” with Ella Vos, “Speeding Up” with slenderbodies, “All Into Nothing” with R3HAB, and “I’m Sorry” with Stand Atlantic, to name a few. Additionally, he lent his talents to remixes for G-Eazy, Daya, Rob Thomas, and more with GOLDHOUSE. During 2019, he unveiled the 4201 EP powered by “More Than Friends,” “Inside Out,” and “ICLYA.” On its heels, “Colorblind,” an emotive, atmospheric track that opened, a vulnerable look at depression, exploded to the tune of 63.2M+ Spotify streams.
In its wake, he created at a prolific pace, assembling what would become Color Me In with frequent collaborator and co-producer Trent Dabbs.“Towards the end of COVID, I was writing a bunch of songs,” he recalls. “I go through seasons where I’ll write a ton and work on what I’ve written. This one lasted from the beginning of 2021 through to 2022. I’ll get with Trent, and we’ll discuss life, what we’re going through, and all of these different things. I challenged myself with the melodies, even if they felt counterintuitive to how I would typically do things. We made production choices that were a little out of my comfort zone, putting real drums on tracks. I ran towards things I wouldn’t normally do.”
After racking up hundreds of millions of streams and earning acclaim from Wonderland, Billboard, and more, as well as wrapping up his first full North America tour supporting slenderbodies this past summer, Mokita continues to break boundaries on his 2022 EP, Color Me In.
