Weekly Release Spotlight: Black Moth Super Rainbow
Posted on 6/14/2009
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Eating Us
[Graveface]
Seeing a band live should make you like them more. Being in the same room with an artist while they reenact what that made you fall in love with them is supposed to enhance the experience. You're sharing something with the artist – feeding off of each other's energy, maybe inhaling some of their expended carbon dioxide. But perhaps Black Moth Super Rainbow serves its purpose better by existing only in the imagination. When the music creates a universe all its own as it does on Eating Us, the Pennsylvania collective's fourth(-ish) full length record, a physical manifestation can only disappoint. The band must understand this, because they perform in the dark and rely on a projection of creepy B-movies and public access shows to take care of the visual element of their performances.
It's easy to check the "psychedelic" box, declare them weirdo hippies and leave it at that (especially with monikers like Father Hummingbird and Tobacco, and song names like "Iron Lemonade" and "Jump Into My Mouth and Breathe the Stardust" – and that's not even getting into their videos…). But Black Moth is more than just weirdo hippies. The songs on Eating Us are a unique blend of organic and synthetic - primarily electronic instrumentation and vocoder-laden vocals accentuated by real life instruments (even banjo!).
But if you never saw Black Moth perform, you'd never believe these sounds were created by humans. Picking up where their friends The Octopus Project (with whom they collaborated on 2006's The House of Apples and Eyeballs) leave off, the band crafts eerie pop songs that are creepy but at the same time just seem to make sense. Their 2007 release, Dandelion Gum, is supposedly a concept album about a witch who makes candy in the woods. And after listening to them, there seems to be nothing strange about that. While The Octopus Project hints at aliens and witches, Black Moth makes you believe in them. The music elicits a purely emotional response, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice by over thinking or trying to categorize it.
Stream: Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born On A Day the Sun Didn't Rise
Written by Dana Raidt, Radio K volunteer.