Luis Vasquez’s challenging blend of post-punk, psychedelia and abrassive electronics is hardly happy-go-lucky music at the best of times, yet if the industrial thump of new single ‘Black’ is anything to go by, things are about to get a whole load darker.
Structured around oppressive, mechanised percussion and threateningly ominous synth pads, the only sign of organic life present is Vasquez’s voice, slowly becoming one with the post-apocalyptic soundtrack through heavy modulation and glitching. “I don’t care what they say, living life my own way” Vasquez speaks in hushed, breathless tones; the lyricism harbouring a cold, aggressively nihilistic sense of detachment reflected equally by the sonic backdrop. There isn’t much humanity that manages to break through The Soft Moon’s iron-clad walls of perpetualism, but what remnants do make their way in reveal only the bleakest enclaves of the psyche. As the beats activate a higher echelon of their violent stamping setting and the electronic gurgle is buried by terrifying computerized wails, it becomes frightfully apparent that whether you’re a man or a machine, no one has any fun in The Soft Moon’s world.
Aside from the listener, because it sounds bloody brilliant.
The new album Deeper is out on March 31st via Captured Tracks.
