NEWS
John Johanna — New Moon Pangs
New Moon Pangs: Reflects on inspiration’s ebb and flow, like the moon, and a thanksgiving for a creatively fruitful phase after false starts.
With New Moon Pangs, John Johanna presents his first full-fledged studio album of acoustic folk rock, marking an exciting return to musical and poetic roots. The album features grooving country gospel, a driving drone-folk setting of a 17th-century radical ballad, an elegiac dream of a South American master, and a shimmering evocation of a vanishing world of visionary greenwood ecstatics.
Recorded over two days at London’s Total Refreshment Centre with James Howard (electric bass), Ursula Russell (drums), and producer Kristian Craig Robinson, the album was finalised in Johanna’s rural Norfolk home studio, IMZIM. The result balances raw, live energy with intimate, lyrical depth.
John Johanna, the nom de guerre of Ben MacDiarmid, is a singular English singer-songwriter. His varied output spans minimal rock, psych-folk, and the 2022 Ahimsa EP with Mandé jali Sefo Kanuteh. In 2024, he composed the score for Day of the Fight, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and is working on music for Wyrd Sister, a 2026 play by Contemporary Ritual Theatre. His work has earned acclaim from BBC Radio 6 Music’s Don Letts, Zakia Sewell, Lauren Laverne, and Tom Robinson.
Produced by: John Johanna & Kristian Craig Robinson
Engineered & Mixed by: Kristian Craig Robinson
Musicians:
John Johanna: Vocals, guitars, keys, harmonica
Ursula Russell: Drums
James Howard: Electric bass
Recorded at: Total Refreshment Centre, London, May 2022
Cover Painting by: Elizabeth Clough