Info: Brighton in the U.K. seems to be a bit of a hotbed of great new music at the moment, included amongst the many new acts crossing different genres are experimental electro troupe Moon > Sun. They've just re-released their debut E.P., simply titled, Extended Play, on the gift that keeps giving that is label Little League Records. Touching on the likes of Four Tet and Animal Collective, but free-wheeling off into it's own distance, Extended Play is a really nice collection of four tracks. Whilst all four numbers are enjoyable, I'm finding that the second and third tracks, 'Norway' and 'Over' (both below) are particularly floating my boat, both are spacey, carefree and have nice beats sharing space with some lovely digital ditties and vocals thrown in, also, key to the enjoyment of this E.P. is the diversity between tracks. One of the band who operates the flight deck, Isaac, took time to run through a quick Q & A, and I've decided to let this interview be the last time I moan about Ed Sheeran (for a while anyway).
Moon > Sun, 'Norway'
Remy: I'm going to start by boring you with a stale interview question, and only because there is currently little information about you online, I'm sorry, but, how did you guys get together?
Isaac: Moon > Sun was initially a solo project of mine I started rather interestingly in late 2013 with the release of a really terrible rap song. Weirdly loads of my friends were into it but it was just an experiment. A year later after producing mediocre (slightly more interesting/experimental) demos I got to the point where I disliked everything I created on my own. I used to hang out with George loads in the summer, we both seemed to share a deep hatred for humanity and spent days on end content with making music. I learn a lot
from working with him so it only made sense to start a band. Following this the lovely Bish, our great great friend, joined in order to provide fresh bass rhythms, vocals and vibes. We jammed a little over christmas – re-worked a few of the songs from the EP, wrote some more etc, but it kinda felt a little lacking. Recently, best mate and well-known sass queen, Sofia joined in and brought a whole new dynamic, of female vox and classical knowledge with her strong flute game. Super excited to get the new stuff out there.
Remy: Across the four tracks on your debut self-titled E.P. the music is chaotic and takes non-standard experimentation to unusual places, in a good way, is it always in your minds to go a little further to the edges when your putting together tracks?
Isaac: I find when we’re working on tracks we never tend to try too hard to think out of the box, reference or draw influence from other artists and rather try to create exactly what we’re hearing in our heads. It seems like a perfectly controlled and accessible track once we’ve spent 1,309,843 years working on it, but in cases when we’ve shown friends its often evoked puzzled emotions which leads us to understand that we are generally a little bit weird.
Remy: I can hear some evidence of influences on certain tracks like Four Tet's 'Rounds' on 'Microwaves' and Animal Collective on 'Norway', are you fans of either?
Isaac: Personally for me they’re the kind of artists I’ve heard a great deal about but have never properly checked out. The few tracks I’ve heard from either artist are great though, so thanks for the massive compliment! Since I started playing in punk bands before producing this stuff I never really gained a great knowledge for electronic/pop. I need to delve a little deeper.
Moon > Sun, 'Over'
Remy: On second track 'Norway' there's also a few Atari-esque soundbytes scattered in there, are you retro gaming fans or do you just like the sounds?
Isaac: Literally just loved the sound. We love a tasty bitcrush sometimes which can occasionally result in a freaky 8-bit video gaming vibe. But yeah we love the sound and are indifferent to varied thoughts on the vibe and such.
Remy: On your Bandcamp page you've tagged your sound as 'experimental oddball pop', would you consider yourselves to be a cog in an unofficial and disconnected underground grouping of musicians who are happy to fly under the radar of mainstream music, or is that just romantic hipster poppycock?
Isaac: I really dunno man, I don’t feel we’ve been together long enough or gained enough recognition to justify being part of a scene or labelled by people in a particular way.
Remy: Taking a step away from your own music for a second, I was watching some of the preview show for The Brit Awards at the weekend and it felt like (not just regarding The Brit Awards) in general there are the same bland acts being pushed time and time again. Coldplay, Jessie Ware to name two, and I swear, it really is only a matter of time before I either wake up beside a naked Ed Sheeran or he's making a fry when I walk into my kitchen some morning, he's fucking everywhere. Does popular music in the UK irritate you at times
or are you quite indifferent to it?
Isaac: Yup, I’ll be honest, the popular music you’re suggesting really pisses me off, but I mean I’ve been hating music like that for so long I guess I’ve become indifferent in a way. It’s fun to laugh at and occasionally enjoy out of irony, or sometimes even just enjoy – that shit can get tasty!
Remy: Care to share some music / acts that you've come across since the start of the year and we can pop a few streams at the bottom of the interview for the readers?
Isaac: Firstly I think we’ll shoot you the most recent EP from our label mates The Pluto Moons from Brooklyn. I can't describe the overwhelming feeling of joy I found the first time I heard ‘$pooky’. ‘Listen to the EP a lot’ is the best advice I can give right now. https://theplutomoons.bandcamp.com
Remy: I couldn't agree more here, I have the E.P. on my phone and '$pooky' is unreal, a crazily good set of songs.
Isaac: Secondly I’d like you to know about Elvin Brandhi who I was told about through a friend. She really pushes certain boundaries and toys with the concept of what a song can be. It’s consistenly filled with tense heavily manipulated sounds and textures which gives off a super fucked up creepy thing that’s kind of quite beautiful. Strict experimental-ness right here.
Remy: Please rank your fellow Brightonians in order, The Kooks, Electric Soft Parade, British Sea Power, Blood Red Shoes.
Isaac: I don’t really know enough of them to say, but I can assure you there’s a ton of Brighton based bands we’re into (too many to name).
Remy: Are you playing many live shows at the moment, and would you like to play in Ireland? Have you been over before?
Isaac: We actually haven't played many live shows at all, since only being a collective unit from the start of the year. I went over to Ireland when I was young, from what I remember I had a pretty super time, but yeah we’d definitely love to come over and play a show, even a fat tour would go down a treat.
Remy: Finally, how would you feel if you were sitting in your local barbershop reading a Q Magazine interview with David Guetta and he mentioned this
really cool band called Moon Over Soon (egregious misspelling is addressed by Isaac below!) that he's listening to at the moment. Would you reach for the shaving razor and end it all there and then or would you ring your Nan like a giddy schoolgirl to tell her the great news?
Isaac: Well first I’d be like ‘shit, I’m in a band called Moon Over Sun, is there another band called Moon Over Soon or is it a typo and actually referring to us??’. If it was the latter, which it probably would be knowing Dave’s broad knowledge of experimental pop, we’d give him a ring and ask for some dolla to produce his next tune for him. Then I’d call my nan and ask her to cook me up some angel delight to celebrate our success.
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