DANDELION GUM

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.