UK POST ROCK TOP 14: PART 3
Moonshake have got to be one of the oddest bands ever. Not in a 'hey look at me, I'm freaky!' way though. They were kind of really normal which gave them an unsettling edge. You could see yourself in these guys and perhaps what you saw wasn't quite right. You felt like the daily grind of urban life had taken a toll on these people. A duality was at play here with two singer/songwriters tag teaming at opposite ends of the rock spectrum. Dave Callahan was kind of angry and on a vociferous rant while Margaret Fiedler was muttering to herself disturbingly. While Callahan and Fiedler got all the notoriety, this band wouldn't have been half as good without the most underrated rhythm section in rock history. John Frenett was on bass and his style was a marvellous intersection between dub and funk. Possibly the most awe inspiring element of the group though was the drumming/percussion of Miguel Moreland. It is hard to ascertain though how much of this dizzying percussive display is him or sequencing/sampling. I couldn't really give a shit because whatever it is, it's fucking great! Moreland made this band worthy of being named after a classic Can tune. Has drumming on an LP ever captured so much of the percussive spectrum? Moreland's playing can be really fucking heavy but he's also very nimble and can be light as a feather. The percussion here is all that and everything in between. Moonshake created this music which was an incredibly idiosyncratic expression of who, what and where they were at the time. Not only that, this must have been what they saw as a possible future pop template. It was all about strange blends and weird paradoxical amalgams. Moonshake were shouting out against the world and wanting to hide from it at the same time. They had a No Wave-esque negation happening and yet they embraced current state of the (pop)art technology. Reverence for music's past and musicianship was part of the equation too. Moonshake could only ever sound like Moonshake. Imitating this motley crew would be fucking impossible.
Ultra funky deep bass, groovy congas, surreal guitar squalls, flute, layer upon layer of sampled noise, taught guitar lines, saxophone squiggles along with Callahan's classic post-punk snarl are all jumbled into this kitchen sink mix and that's just on the first tune Wanderlust. Disconcerting atmospheres, black holes of dissonance, guitars bent way out of shape and Fiedler's cloying yet creepy vocals battle it out for a piece of centre stage action on Tar Baby. The title of Bleach & Salt Water says it all as this track is an ambient underwater urban dub whiteout. The beat here is whirling through a vortex to a startling degree. Moreland makes 3 minutes 40 seem like an eternity and I reckon I could definitely go another 20 or 45 minutes of this incredible groove. Little Thing meanwhile is rhythmic psychedelia, that's spaced out to the max. Only Moonshake could make a tune so ambient yet so tense. City Poison is like a history lesson in underground guitar noise. This is like a tribute to all the Posts ie. Post-Psych (cf.Krautrock), Post-Punk, Post Hardcore and Post-MBV. The beauty of this tune though is that it only really sounds like Moonshake. How the fuck did they do that? Spaceship Earth's clangorous guitars fly into an intense slide frenzy, then keep infinitely spiralling. Jesus, even Callahan gets melodic here! Beautiful Pigeon finds Moonshake at their most pop. Massive drums tumble wildly amongst the rest of the noise, while the bass stalks threateningly trying to hold things down as Margaret's eccentric whispers reach melodic levels as well. It was the grunge era so this could have easily been a hit but.......(?). They save the best till last, Mugshot Heroine closes this classic LP on a triumphant note. Horns go haywire, the rhythms get incredibly funky, discordant horror soundtrack strings jolt you out of your seat, ghost(town)like trumpets appear and all hell breaks loose.
Moonshake arrived at a sound (jam packed layers of samples that are piled up to bursting point that still feels like a mine field listening to it today) that was nearly pop. When you had a closer look at its dense layers of detail though it was all, well... quite bizarre. It may seem like an almighty chaotic mess but this LP is meticulously crafted down to every last microscopic sound. Producer/engineer Guy Fixsen is probably to be thanked for that. I've listened to this record hundreds of times and trying to write about it has got to be one of the hardest tasks I've ever set myself. Whatever I write will never do Eva Luna justice. You never know what's going to pop up or which turn it's about to take. This is a trip where the turbulence becomes so disorientating it sort of becomes beautiful (sort of....not really....I dunno....does it?).
Stupendous.
Ultra funky deep bass, groovy congas, surreal guitar squalls, flute, layer upon layer of sampled noise, taught guitar lines, saxophone squiggles along with Callahan's classic post-punk snarl are all jumbled into this kitchen sink mix and that's just on the first tune Wanderlust. Disconcerting atmospheres, black holes of dissonance, guitars bent way out of shape and Fiedler's cloying yet creepy vocals battle it out for a piece of centre stage action on Tar Baby. The title of Bleach & Salt Water says it all as this track is an ambient underwater urban dub whiteout. The beat here is whirling through a vortex to a startling degree. Moreland makes 3 minutes 40 seem like an eternity and I reckon I could definitely go another 20 or 45 minutes of this incredible groove. Little Thing meanwhile is rhythmic psychedelia, that's spaced out to the max. Only Moonshake could make a tune so ambient yet so tense. City Poison is like a history lesson in underground guitar noise. This is like a tribute to all the Posts ie. Post-Psych (cf.Krautrock), Post-Punk, Post Hardcore and Post-MBV. The beauty of this tune though is that it only really sounds like Moonshake. How the fuck did they do that? Spaceship Earth's clangorous guitars fly into an intense slide frenzy, then keep infinitely spiralling. Jesus, even Callahan gets melodic here! Beautiful Pigeon finds Moonshake at their most pop. Massive drums tumble wildly amongst the rest of the noise, while the bass stalks threateningly trying to hold things down as Margaret's eccentric whispers reach melodic levels as well. It was the grunge era so this could have easily been a hit but.......(?). They save the best till last, Mugshot Heroine closes this classic LP on a triumphant note. Horns go haywire, the rhythms get incredibly funky, discordant horror soundtrack strings jolt you out of your seat, ghost(town)like trumpets appear and all hell breaks loose.
Moonshake arrived at a sound (jam packed layers of samples that are piled up to bursting point that still feels like a mine field listening to it today) that was nearly pop. When you had a closer look at its dense layers of detail though it was all, well... quite bizarre. It may seem like an almighty chaotic mess but this LP is meticulously crafted down to every last microscopic sound. Producer/engineer Guy Fixsen is probably to be thanked for that. I've listened to this record hundreds of times and trying to write about it has got to be one of the hardest tasks I've ever set myself. Whatever I write will never do Eva Luna justice. You never know what's going to pop up or which turn it's about to take. This is a trip where the turbulence becomes so disorientating it sort of becomes beautiful (sort of....not really....I dunno....does it?).
Stupendous.
