had died. Later that night, she heard that another friend of hers had died the same day. "So that's when I woke up," Marshall recalled. "I was like, you know what? What am I doing?" With the cassette of the songs recorded the night of her episode still in her possession, Marshall decided to fax Turner and White, whose band the Dirty Three she had played shows with, and asked if they wanted to record. She asked her record label, Matador, for money to travel to Australia, and spent three months there "hanging out and having a great time" until being told by White that Turner would be leaving Australia in two days, at which point they entered the studio to record the album. "Stepping into Australia was stepping into something more positive and triumphant as a young woman," Marshall explained in a 2018 Guardian article. "I was, on purpose, choosing a path out of solitude. I found joy I had never felt; some part of the freedom I got there." According to Marshall, some of Moon Pix was also inspired by two months she spent alone in South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania, an experience that she said "dented" her. "Cross Bones Style" was written about two children she met in Africa who slept in trees at night after their parents were killed. The song "Colors and the Kids" was written in the studio, and the lyric "Yellow hair, you are such a funny bear" refers to several people, including Marshall's nephew, a former bandmate, and American singer/ songwriter Will Oldham, whom Marshall drank with in Australia, and who she says reminded her of the South. Recording The majority of Moon Pix was recorded at Sing Sing Studio in Melbourne, Australia by house engineer Matt Voigt. In a 2006 interview with Mess+Noise, Voigt revealed that work on the album started the day after New Year's in 1998, with Marshall arriving with her guitar and asking Voigt how he wanted to set up for recording. Most of the songs were recorded with Marshall singing and playing guitar at the same time, with Marshall and a microphone in one room and a small guitar amplifier in another. The album's opener, "American Flag," features a slowed-down reversed drum sample from the 1986 Beastie Boys song, "Paul Revere." According to Voigt, Marshall appeared with a copy of the song on album in her bag,