moonweevil

Many thanks to Keith over at Fruits de Mer for sending over a copy of the latest Moonweevil limited, first of very many Fruits de Mer and related releases that you’ll find peppered across these pages in coming days. This is the chap from Cranium Pie – Rob Appleton, so you’ve been forewarned to expect exemplary weirdness aplenty. ‘verticle tide’ should you want a copy and you should / will, there’s a 100 copies (– pressed on vinyl and including a CD featuring not only the album for heathens without a turntable, but a whole host of other material that never made the cut, alas annoyingly our copy has thus far refused polite persuasion)  lurking, available for purchase, play and love (alas chemical enhancers you’ll need to sort for yourself not that I expect you’ll be in need of such assistance for this is one trip pill) at the coming FdM live soirees. Sonically speaking, ‘Verticle tide’ is brain fodder, all mellowed ambient warbles and baubles that’s best appreciated by finding yourself a quiet spot and donning the head cans, that way you get to swim its terra-forming tides, at times very Tangerine-y in vibe, the expansive palette awash in lifeforms, hard I know, but try imagining a seriously chilled Ozrics. Perfect days end listening that for the best part rarely shifts out of first gear, at once intricate and multi layered, ‘verticle tides’ as the title might give hint is very oceanic in sound, yet hitherto, astral and cosmic, in fact if I didn’t know better I’d suspect it was field recordings from an alien landscape. Across two sides of wax lurk ten tracks, the first eight you’ll find shoehorned onto one single side, collectively forming a palette daubed and dappled in an array of down tempo strides, Radiophonic warbles and the occasional subtle dub detailing – see ‘tapping into the future’ which overall has the kind a hypnotic trance toned vibe that used to adore those classic ‘Breezeblock’ workouts via Mary Ann Hobbs for Radio 1 in the mid / late 90’s. Elsewhere the beautifully terra-forming ‘north dwarf’ fuses tropical motifs with a lunar fashioning to arrive at something sultry and noir, the noir effect continuing into ‘ether machine’ – well I say ‘ether machine’ it gets a bit difficult to tell which track is which as the grooves are so finitely locked together. Favourite moments come courtesy of both ‘geometricity’ and ‘synthonicus’ – the former oozed by a dreamy propulsion with the latter retiring to slumber to the sleeping sigh of a lunar lullaby. Over on the flip, the creative eye gets a tad more purposeful, the two tracks given a chance to expand, the first of which ‘confluence five nine one seven’ at times appearing to be on a navigational collision course with Polypores as though imagined refracted through the creative lens of Jean Michel Jarre, the kosmische shifting sands continually in flux emerging as though waiting for a series of Stranger Things to adopt, its pulsing pulsar motifs much like some galactic sized brain washing dream machine – see Sonic Boom and Sunray or else the resting hum of a resting alien craft (remember Anderson’s UFO?).. ‘Time is Round’ takes the set to its conclusion, an ominous visitation, its cosmic heraldry nodding to Add N to X whilst overall rekindling fond memories of last year’s superb Castles in Space offering by CHXFX, nuff said., required listening.