8 October 2026 – Star Moles Sign to Dead Oceans and Bring DIY Oddball Magic to Born Again

Philadelphia-based songwriter Emily Moales has spent years quietly building an extraordinarily deep catalogue under the name Star Moles. Now the wider independent music business has finally noticed, with Dead Oceans announcing that the project has joined its esteemed roster. The signing arrives alongside "Born Again," a new single recorded with Kevin Basko of Rubber Band Gun at the Historic New Jersey studio. Moales has already accumulated dozens of releases over nearly a decade, but recent album Highway To Hell helped bring her homemade indie pop and idiosyncratic songwriting to a considerably wider audience.

Jeff Tweedy has covered her material, while fellow independent songwriter This Is Lorelei has become an enthusiastic supporter. "Born Again" demonstrates why the attention is justified. Star Moles combine the eccentric looseness of homemade recordings with songwriting instincts that occasionally suggest a forgotten seventies pop classic has wandered into somebody's basement. Moales describes the song as an expression of frustration rather than a straightforward narrative, using heightened language to communicate emotions that ordinary descriptions cannot quite contain.

The accompanying Lucky Marvel-directed video continues the project's distinctive visual personality. Signing to a respected independent label like Dead Oceans can sometimes mean sanding away the peculiarities that attracted attention in the first place. The encouraging detail here is that Star Moles appear determined to preserve their collaborative DIY universe. The music industry has discovered another wonderfully strange songwriter, and listeners can only hope they resist any temptation to make her normal.