As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of electronic music bores me, but some electronic artists strike me in right way. Black Moth Super Rainbow is one of those. I think it’s because these guys mostly play actual keyboards – holy cow, I could see them actually fingering some of the synth melodies that you might think were running on some sort of loop. I do think the band could try once in a while to do vocals without the vocoder treatment, but the songs are pretty catchy with cool atmosphere. And for jammy electronica tunes, they’re surprisingly short and concise. These songs make their point and then they’re over.
The band put on a pretty good performance last night (Sept. 6) at the Abbey Pub, with a movie screen pulled halfway down in front of the group. Lots of clips from exercise videos and soft-porn films played on the screen and the bass drum while the musicians tinkered with their synths and banged gongs. The drumming – sometimes herky-jerky, sometimes more straightforward propulsion – added a lot to Black Moth’s sound.
I showed up at the Abbey just in time for the last song by the first band, Tirra Lirra. Plastic Crimewave Sound played second, with lots of long, jammy psychedelic garage grunge. Think very early Pink Floyd mixed with Nuggets and drone.
See my photos of Black Moth Super Rainbow and Plastic Crimewave Sound.