Mollenbeck officially debuts with The darkness that saves meEP out of the January 30, 2026 For Doc Music with distribution Artist First. A short, essential project that comes after the ad experience Friends and puts a specific urgency at the center: to talk about fragility without superstructures.
Mollenbeckstage name of Samuel Mollenbeckborn in 2001, originally from the province of Mantua and Brescia by adoption, made himself known to the general public by participating in the latest edition of Friends in the team of Lorella Cuccarini. A path that has broadened his audience but which has not changed the nature of his writing: direct, emotional, focused on relationships.
Darkness as a space of truth
The darkness that saves me is composed of three songs: BAD, THE DARK THAT SAVES ME (focus track) e STORM. Three different moments of the same emotional state: the end of a relationship, the doubt that creeps in when love is no longer enough and that suspended space in which you find yourself alone with yourself.
The “darkness” evoked in the title is not just the absence of light. It's a state of mind, a place to stop when the outside noise gets too loud. There is no search for the definitive answer, but the desire to go through a phase without masking it.
“The EP is born in the darkness, which becomes the only form of truth, the one that scares but in which you finally stop pretending and learn to live with yourself. The songs speak of bonds that save and destroy at the same time, of silences that weigh more than words and of the inexplicable pain of life when not even love is enough to keep you standing anymore. It is not a point of arrival but a suspended moment, the moment before losing yourself or really saving yourself.”
An essential pop, without artifice
The production accompanies the story without loading it with effects. The sound remains clean, minimal, built to leave room for the voice and emotional images. It's contemporary pop that looks more at introspection than spectacularization.
In this sense the EP represents a central phase of the artist's journey: not a point of arrival, but a photograph of passage. After the first experiences in the local urban scene and the stages shared in recent months, Mollenbeck chooses a precise, more intimate and personal direction.
