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Monday, October 31, 2011

#1 Fan The Darkest of Waves

Posted by Kathy Fennessy on Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 7:59 AM

The Soft Moon, Total Decay EP, Captured Tracks

Captured Tracks

The glorious new EP from San Francisco's Soft Moon plays like post-punk's gravest hits by combining the clockwork beats of Cabaret Voltaire, the watery synths of New Order, and the vampiric vocals of Bauhaus with the motorik rhythms of peak-era Krautrock. Moon mastermind Luis Vasquez also appears to have hired a graveyard full of ghosts to provide the backing cries and moans.

It's dark, yet lovely. Gloomy, yet strangely uplifting. As the press notes would have it, Total Decay is "implacably bleak," yet "hypnotic and exhilarating." (I particularly like "Visions," which incorporates the kind of oil can-drumming Savage Republic would elevate to a high art.) The four tracks could serve as the perfect soundtrack for a 16mm black-and-white horror film set in pre-unification Berlin.

If you just can't get enough, Vasquez has put together a fabulous 32-minute mix for FACT, featuring Chrome ("New Age") and 13th Chime ("Cursed").

Captured Tracks releases Total Decay just in time for Halloween. Stream it here.

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Comments (3) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I wanted to love this band, truly, but there's just something there that's stopping me from making a connection. I can't get into it.

Probably didn't help that I saw them live and they were all kinds of boring.

When your aesthetic is cooler than your music and your show, something is wrong.

IMO, YMMV, etc., etc.

Posted by Grease Wizard on October 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM

Soft Moon's a PhD-level pastiche of a lot of bands I love (your reference points are right on; I'd also add Juju-era Siouxsie and the Banshees, for Line Out continuity bonus points), so he's quite all right with me.

Posted by Dave Segal on October 31, 2011 at 10:22 AM

@2 Cosign on Juju. Vasquez has expanded the line-up to a four-piece, so I'd imagine that creates a more dynamic live impression. Don't know if they really bang on oil cans or not, but it wouldn't hurt.

Posted by Kathy Fennessy