Adding to the chiarascuro is that Johnston doesn t record under her own name but as various project monikers. The most recent is Midwife, while Sister Grotto was her past, ambient-based project that lived from around 2013-2016. As with many artists, various external labels apply, yet fall short. Minimalism, shoegaze, even the dreaded singer-songwriter are there, but Johnston prefers her own term: heaven metal. I think my project lives in a lot of different genre-spaces and can exist alongside almost any kind of music, she says. I describe Midwife as heaven metal because it seemed fitting when other genre descriptions couldn’t contain it.it’s ethereal and emotional yet it’s often about dark subject matter. I made up the genre to try to describe this cathartic interplay between worlds, angelic and devastating.
A silhouetted figure stares eyelessly on the cover of
Luminol, Madeline Johnstonâs third album as Midwife. Itâs an old photograph of the artistâs mother in front of a body of water, her unique features erased, so that she becomes a shadow in the landscape, indiscernible from her daughter in the present day. This is the albumâs first act of dissolution: the blending of mother and daughter, landscape and body.
Johnston has described her musical output, which includes the somber experimental pop of Midwife and the ambient drone project Sister Grotto, as âheaven metal,â a categorization that taps into her ability to wrench ecstasy from devastation, to make romance out of abject pain, and to transmute specific feelings into an ineffable longing. In 2015, while residing at Denverâs artist- and DIY-led venue Rhinoceropolis, she began channelling these ideas into Midwife, whose most obvious comparison can be found in Liz Harrisâ work as Grouper. Now