It’s pretty much without color. It’s gray, and it’s a very white, chalky gray… I’m looking at the Earth. It’s big and bright and beautiful. — Neil Armstrong comparing the Moon and the Earth immediately after the Apollo 11 landing

Our Moon is the high school B-lister who gains social relevance through an unlikely relationship with the football star or the cheerleader. Though the Moon is allowed to sit at the Cool Kids table, if it were not in orbit around its more colorful companion, the Moon would be just another crater-faced kid always picked last for the kickball team.

Unworthy even of a creative name, its loyalty – following us through space for multiple millennia, absorbing countless meteors meant for us, giving lovers something over which to spoon, and always showing us its best side – earns the Moon scant affection. It’s been years since our last call. And if we ever start dating again, our significant other will be a real Planet.

We assume that the Moon accepts our loveless liaison since it has made no effort to leave. Where would it go? But surely the Moon, continually tugging at our tides but gaining our full attention only when it interposes itself between our gaze and the Sun, is left unfulfilled by the relationship.

Arsoniste’s new single, ‘Gravity,’ describes a similar dynamic: a satellite’s unrequited love for a body that has pulled the living moon into its orbit. The moon basks in the warmth of the planet, sees every detail on its surface. But to the eyes looking outward, the orbiter is just one in a blanket of lights cast across the sky.

Close enough, count the hairs on you
Close enough, fill the air with you
I know I keep it hidden
You’re all I see…

I’m like a little satellite
Floating in silence through the night
One of a million stars in your eyes

‘Gravity’ is full of space, each note as lonely as the tiny Vanguard floating one thousand miles above the world that tossed it away. We are drawn to Arsoniste’s voice, a light wave that gently bends the rules of Principia by having attraction without mass.

Arsoniste is the solo project of singer-songerwriter Rachel Sunter of Halifax, Nova Scotia. On the Facebook page of the Banff Cetre for Arts and Creativity, Arsoniste says, ‘I write songs to contemplate and divulge in the vulnerability that arises from difficult relationships, from being a female artist, from being a human in general.’ A student of opera and classical piano, she describes the piano as ‘an endlessly soothing and expressive instrument.’

Arsoniste’s music is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud. Visit her website, and be sure to follow Arsonite on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.