New Signing Mokita Shares “Room For Another”; Listen Here
February 18, 2022 BY Penny Palmer
Nettwerk Records is excited to announce the signing of chill-pop producer-musician Mokita to its label roster.
Over the past two years, Mokita (aka John-Luke Carter) has been writing, recording, and self-producing meaningful songs with unrelenting honesty. For Mokita, music is a profoundly intimate form of expression; a means to tackle the most sincere of subjects. Out today, Mokita shares “Room For Another,” a gentle-yet-passionate track co-written with friend and labelmate Bre Kennedy. “The song is about the transition of letting someone else into your life. I envisioned it as this two-fold idea; one was on the level of someone occupying this physical space, like the space in a house, and the other was a more metaphysical space where you’re making room emotionally for someone else. The whole time I was working on the record, I had this mental snapshot of this house sitting on top of a mountain, and you’re there by yourself just dreaming about sharing it with someone,” says Mokita. Adding, “the song, from a production standpoint, is very simple. Drums, bass, and piano. I wanted the song’s lyrics and melody to be the focal point, and I wanted it to have this constant feeling of longing and hopefulness.”
Mokita is part of Nashville’s community of artists, dubbed – “The Laurel Canyon of the South.” These artists represent the new sound of Nashville, as represented by artists like Joy Oladokun, Madi Diaz, Old Sea Brigade, Jake Wesley Rogers, Charlotte Sands, Patrick Droney, and more.
In the early ’10s, with the rise of the DSPs’ and affordable, independent distribution, a community of non-country artists and songwriters began coalescing in Nashville, almost under the radar, at least to the major labels in New York & Los Angeles. Nashville’s relative affordability and storied songwriting history were a natural draw for this group of artists who didn’t feel at home in LA or NY at that time. In Nashville, these artists émigrés found like-minded writers & musicians to collaborate with, clubs to perform their songs, and a publishing community that valued great songwriting. Concurrently, and spawned by Nashville-based rock and pop artists (Jason Isbell, The Black Keys, Kings Of Leon, Meghan Trainor) and crossover country-pop acts (Taylor Swift, Kasey Musgraves, Maren Morris), the sharp lines that defined who could write in what genre disappeared rapidly. Inspired by the singer-songwriter and band scene, Producers previously tied to LA or NY moved to Nashville. A new class of managers and independent labels soon followed. All these elements, combined with what is essentially still a small town, have led to a creative environment where the rising tide of one singer-songwriter’s success lifts the boat of the entire community. Mokita is part of that community in Nashville. Like every other great singer-songwriter here, his story is part of the more remarkable story of the new sound of Nashville,” Marshall Altman, Nettwerk A&R.
Mokita grew up in a small town in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and later in western North Carolina. He found music at a young age, started piano lessons at age five, and picked up the guitar at 12, quickly realizing he would prefer to write original compositions instead of playing those others wrote. But it wasn’t until he moved to Nashville at 24 years old that he began to cut his teeth as a prolific songwriter and collaborator. Mokita has seen notable success over the past few years, with over 400 million streams across his releases and an upcoming U.S. tour with slenderbodies. See dates below.
Mokita joins Nettwerk’s expanding label roster, including Passenger, Wrabel, Old Sea Brigade, SYML, Wild Rivers, and others. Stay tuned in the coming days for more music and info.
“Room For Another” is available at all digital retailers. Click Here: https://mokita.ffm.to/roomforanother.
Tour Dates:
June 2 Santa Barbara, CA @ Soho Restaurant & Music Club
June 3 San Diego, CA @ Music Box
June 4 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
June 6 Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
June 7 Dallas, TX @ Dada Dallas
June 9 Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
June 10 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
June 11 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
June 13 Washington, DC @ Union Stage
June 14 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
June 15 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
June 17 South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
June 18 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
June 19 Toronto, ON @ Adelaide Hall
June 21 Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Café
June 22 Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
June 26 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
June 27 Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Café
June 30 Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
July 1 Salt Lake City, UT @ Hangar House
July 3 Seattle, WA @ Neumos
July 4 Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
July 5 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
July 7 San Francisco, CA @ August Hall
July 8 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
