BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

— First review of this album —

Armed with vocoders, Novatrons, and a liberated sense of music strictly as art, this mysterious group of mad scientists makes some very neat stuff and with frequent but perfectly added surface noise, Black Moth Super Rainbow's Start a People is much like finding some funky old LP in the dollar box at a b&m record shop, taking it home, and being both appalled and enraptured at the nerve someone had putting this stuff to vinyl.

But there's something there that makes you keep it, something interesting, unique, just plain fun, maybe important but probably not, and eventually, maybe years or decades later, you pull it out and listen and realize why you thought it was so fascinating in the first place. These nameless five want us to forget it's an arty emulation, they want us to feel as if we're experiencing a real artifact of music history's bloated and dingy past, and it works beautifully. BMSR is often termed "experimental", "neopsychedelic", "Indietronic", "synthpop" and a variety of other labels all fair, none of which capture their sound. There is no denying the Chiptune/bitpop presence, suggesting a group of guys reared on videogames and perfectly happy to simulate that culture in rock. Slightly warped 'Raspberry Dawn' and its in-the-hood gangsta fever, streetwise 'Vietcaterpillar', urban arcade adventures of 'I am the Alphabet', dreamy 'I Think it is Beautiful That You Are 256 Colors Too' is reminiscent of the loop-driven postrock of Tortoise, and large 'Count Backwards to Black' & 'Early 70s Gymnastics' evokes that decade's UFO pop subculture. Think Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of.

Full on Atari 8-bit Family explosions for 'Folks With Magic Toes', 'Trees and Colors and Wizards' contrasted nicely by d. kyler's drums, 'Hazy Field People' is a layered and lush reprise, and jazzy hidden cut 'Smile Heavy' is a fantastic old-fashioned electronic prog ditty.

Very cool if you're in the mood for something different, these gameboys put on no pretenses and represent a tiny but special place in the experimental art-rock galaxy.

Somewhat similar to Stereolab and Future Sound of London in that they try to take the sound of trip-hop into unique and original territory, Black Moth Super Rainbow differs from Stereolab's lengthy compositions and drumnbass influences, as well as FSOL's fusing of classic early 70s introspective prog-rock with hip-hop rhythms, and instead reaches for very early naïve psychedelic influences to break from the trip-hop pack. Not only does Black Moth favor the sound of classic late 60s analog keyboards, but their melodies and song structures recall an age when the arrival of psychedelic drugs gave artists a sense of awakening and re-invention in every unique melodic twist that momentarily amused them. Maybe it's the preponderance of flute Mellotron, but a lot of this record sounds like it could have been taken from stoned off- sessions by Lennon/McCartney, possible recordings that were never considered suitable for a proper Beatles release.

Like a lot of trip-hop flavored music, the influence of late 60s exotica is also noticeable, especially in the huge sounding and almost unruly very analog synthesizers used. These synths, along with the aforementioned flute Mellotron, repeating acoustic guitar patterns, some very low-fi down tempo drum patterns and a variety of low key simple echo and reverb derived sounds make up the modern exotica texture of this album. The recording production style is psychedelic, but simple and never over-produced, once again favoring early psychedelic aescetics as opposed to often over-produced slick trip-hop sensibilities. The vocals are spare and always sung through a subtle vocoder effect. Vocoders can become annoying quickly, so kudos to Black Moth for being careful with their attempts to hide the fact that they probably have less than stellar singing voices.

This is an excellent album that combines some of my favorite influences; mid 90s trip-hop, 60s exotica and early psychedelic rock. If you like this sort of thing, I'd highly recommend, the melodies, songs and sounds are not cliché.

This a good album which I listened to non-stop my senior year of high school. I never really thought of them to a prog band, although they are innovative in some sense. Well maybe not, but at least it sounds like they are, if that makes sense. I wouldn't consider this to be prog though. If you are reading this, go give it a listen at free.napster.com and if you like it I suggest you buy it.

A few tracks that stand out on this album: Forever Heavy - It seems to me that it is becoming a standard in the indie-rock world Lollpopsichord Sun Lips Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods - Some cool rhythmic variation in this song. Also great display of the voice effect.

I would tell anyone to go check this out and see what you think, although the outcome may not be pretty. I personally really enjoy this CD, but I think if this band's inclusion in the archives could be disputed.

Good album

I'm not sure if this band really meets the demands of this site and even of crossover prog subgenre. This release sounds typically like Indie-Rock with very little progressive elements.

The record is filled with short and very much the same songs. All the vocals are transformed using Vocoder. These electronic voices combined with characteristic monotonous synths make this mellow indie- feeling on the album, what I don't really consider as interesting. It's simply boring and uninspiring. After several listens it's even hard to point out the best or worst track. On the Homepage of the band you can see a foolish clip to the first song "Born on a Day the Sun Didn't Rise". Actually it's another argument for stay away from this release.