Moonlight

The Moonlight released their first album a few weeks ago and are touring NZ at the moment to alert the dozy rugby-obsessed inhabitants of the Land of the Long White Cloud of its existence. Here’s the opening track, the rather wonderful “Across The Room”.

“Across The Room” sounds like it could be a lost recording by the Jean Paul Sartre Experience as they transitioned from winsome melodic strum into peerless fuzzy shoegaze giants as JPSE. That good.

Listening through the album it also seems The Moonlight would also have fitted comfortably amongst the chiming pop of some of the 1990s/ 2000s Failsafe Records roster, which included bands like Springloader, Throw and Dolphin, and post-JPSE bands Kimo and Mulchzoid.

There’s something distinctly New Zealand about The Moonlight LP and it’s low key yearning existential strum. Or, as they so eloquently say on their Bandcamp page: “A pent up need to give permanent shape to the flux of experience. That kind of stuff.”

I’ll be getting a copy tonight at Chick’s Hotel, where they play with the PopLib endorsed Elan Vital.