Black Moth Super Rainbow - Falling Through a Field

     Before you even start saying it, yes, I got this album because of the name. Basically from the name only, this record could be almost anything, as long as it’s weird. As it turns out, it’s a love story between a man, his 4-track, his 808, and his analog noise generator. I guess there is a keyboard there too, but not a very recent one. I figure this guy to be a sort of proto-Boards of Canada. The sound is similar on a superficial level, but really it’s much more lo-fi and stripped down, and of course there is the guy’s voice, usually heavily filtered or noisy. There is, in addition, a fondness for nature – evident from the sort of electro-pastoral melodies and more readily from the grass-hugging song names like “Dandelion Graves” and “A Season for Blooming.” It’s kind of like BoC crossed with Jewelled Antler Collective, but really in every way except abstract reasoning it’s nothing like that.
     The album is certainly not for everybody. If you can’t deal with the cheesy synths in BoC, you’d better stop reading, cause they are used almost exclusively here. Some tracks more than others – “Boatfriend” is all synth, “Boxphones” almost none – but there is little respite from the beeps. I’m not sure if the album is as good as the name of the artist, but then again that may be an unfair comparison, or simply too high a bar – I don’t know if Abbey Road is a better album than Black Moth Super Rainbow is a bandname. In any case, it’s got a nice sound and is a good break from your other music when you need something strange and consistent in your ears.
     Here's "Boxphones" from Black Moth Super Rainbow.