BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

— First review of this album —

Hard to have much in the way of confidence when I'm running into any so-called "Crossover Prog" band, of a (purported) generalized sub-genre, if we can even call it that, that is too far-flung and oftentimes too uninteresting to really give a sh*t about. [Enough about me. Tell me about you haha.] Confidence is further downtrodden by lower ratings. See this band's page.

My friend, and now roommate, Ethan, suggested them to me and I definitely appreciate his tastes (honestly an understatement), though our interests would result in a well-defined, easily classified Venn diagram. Black Moth Super Rainbow--an offshoot of musician Tobacco's Allegheny White Fish (yes, that is a musician's name; yes, that is a band name; you can see the lineup above for more, I guess), and previously called Satanstompingcaterpillars--delves into electronica, lo-fi and synthpop, as well as experimental and psychedelic. Actually including satanstompingcaterpillars' discography with BMSR's, this is their fourth album (the band with the previous name is not represented here at all). I must say, here and now, their album covers are quite lovely. Definitely something that I would want to pick up at a shop. [For whatever reason, the version I'll be listening to lacks the final, seventeenth track listed above, "Melody For Color Spectrum", and I will be rating/reviewing accordingly.]

Entering in with the greatest ignorance possible, after a wee bit of research, our opener is "Vietcaterpillar" and I can't say I'm not enjoying it! Nice bouncy groove and huge synthy swells! We chill out on the next, "I Think It Is Beautiful That You Are 256 Colors Too" [Wow, I did not even register the title as I was typing it haha!], featuring whispery vocals that honestly reminded me of Chino Moreno (Deftones)... but without any build-up or excitement. The track itself provides zero payoff for me. "Season for Blooming" has charming, little chiptuney trills, which somehow increase in, I guess, atonality(?). It's a bit strange, to say the least. It's difficult to tell if the repeating notes, played chromatically, are changing or if the underlying "accompaniment" is. Again, super odd effect. The lo-fi crackling of "Letter People" and its resumed whispers are met with not-quite-bombastic, and actually quite sleepy-sounding Drum'n'Bass percussion. Experimental, to be sure. It doesn't do much for me though. Evokes the feeling of a high, honestly. [So, if you're into that.]

"Dandelion Graves" may well be a song from Adventure Time. It's dreamy but upbeat. The organ sounds a little churchy, and yet nothing else suggests the same. The whisper-vocals is the norm, I guess; definitely my least favorite element to all this. An apparently synthetic orchestra closes out this (relatively long) number. "Boxphones" is a bit grating to say the least, with these strange, warbling vocals (the loudest of the bunch), and a nails-on-the-chalkboard synth line to follow... "Smog in Cities" is not the first time that was reminiscent to me of C418 (German composer Daniel Rosenfeld), best known for his work for Minecraft. Very dreamy and simple, calling ultimately back to the early Ambient work of Eno. "Your Doppelganger" has some interesting moments and ideas, despite at first being a bit boring to me. The track gives this effect as though you're being stretched along to the music.

"Falling Through a Field" is like another church-ready, Minecraft-adjacent track, this time a love song? Around half of these tracks are pretty much one-dimensional, offering very little in the way of compositional interest. This one is of a lesser mode, though not alone here, offering little in the way of sonic interest, too. "Colorful Nickels" is... also boring. Some cool, spacy padding here and there, but the acoustic guitar strumming along plainly does nothing for me. I feel we have a return to some of the charm of the start of the album on the upbeat "One Flowery Sabbath". "Sun Organ" on the other hand drones and drags along over the course of its somehow-too-long 1-minute run. And on an entirely other hand, I guess, say, your [Boat]friend's hand haha, "Boatfriend" has a whole other (positive) charm to it! A not-quite-shrill synth stabs along over light, airy chords.

Approaching the close to the album, our next track is "The Magical Butterfly Net". Talk about a drone... It's a little eerie, this'n. But there was just nothing here for me. "Last House in the Enchanted Forest" is a pretty apt title. It's one of the few tracks, next to the opener maybe, that evokes "Prog" in even a little way. I like it. Finally, we have "Lake Feet", another track to feature acoustic guitar. The theme, as I would like to call it, is actually quite nice. Like light just shining through that Enchanted Forest onto the lake's surface.

The main reason I would like to continue is to contribute to a little-reviewed, little-rated band. I'm not sure there's a whole lot here for me. On Spotify for instance, I "liked" only two tracks.

— 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.