Darkness is a thing to be toyed with in music (or anything, really). It can produce a sense of peril that will make even a moment of light relief all the more blissful and rejuvenating. Detroit psych-trio Moonwalks are familiar with this contrast, creating cryptic moods mitigated by luminous guitar tones and charged rhythms. Their new single, “Dust Is Magic,” of their forthcoming album, In Light (The Scales In The Frame), provides the proverbial light at the end of its own winding, self-produced tunnel. Warbling, phasing guitar and ticking percussion form a brooding start, like the slow, low rumble of an incoming train, three booming snare hits initiating the whoosh of air and engine past your face as you stand too close to the platform edge. The seemly tunnel into which the whole machine now careens, at first, produces something menacing, a danger in singer/guitarist Jacob Dean’s hypnotic iterations, “dust is magic, magic is love.” A morbid curiosity is found in its pulse. Kate Gutwald’s bass glares like Aladdin’s lamp, beckoning against your better judgment, and Kerrigan Pearce’s drum kit breathes life through you like mouth-to-mouth with a coal-fire. Dean’s guitar’s shadowy twangs take a turn for the aerial and euphoric in instrumental reprieves, choral, reverberating riffs gleam all the brighter now that the blackened veil is lifted. Shimmering melody sees the song to its close and you’re left on the tail end of a comedown, wishing you were still high.
In Light (The Scales In The Frame) is out January 26 on Stolen Body Records.
Moonwalks tour Europe and the UK in the new year!
January
17 – Florence, IT @ NOF
18 – Faenza, IT @ Il Clandestino
19 – Zürich, CH @ Rote Fabrik
20 – Bulle, CH @ Ebullition
21 – Venezia, IT @ TBA
22 – Wien, AT @ Arena Wien
23 – Pecs, HU @ Trafik
24 – Novi Sad, SRB @ TBA
25 – TBA, BG @ TBA
26 – TBA, BG @ TBA
27 – Belgrade, SRB @ Kc Grade
28 – Zagreb, HR @ Tvornica
30 – Prague, CZ @ Kasarna Karlin
31 – Berlin, DE @ Kantine am Berghain
February
1 – Mannheim, DE @ Der Mannheim Kult
2 – London, UK @ Shacklewell Arms
3 – Bristol, UK @ Old England*** RECORD RELEASE PARTY
4 – Brighton, UK @ The Hope and Ruin
5 – Bruxelles, BE @ Le Chaff
7 – Paris, FR @ Supersonic
8 – Tulle, FR @ Des Lendemains Qui Chantent
9 – Reignier, FR @ La Poulpe
10 – Perpignan, FR @ El Mediator
11 – Bordeaux, FR @ TBC
13 – Pamplona, ES @ Txintxarri
14 – Zaragoza, ES @ El Zorro
15 – Madrid, ES @ Moby Dick
16 – Benidorm, ES @ Rockstar
17 – Cartaxo, PT @ Cartaxo Session
18 – Granada, ES @ TBA
19 – Tarragona, ES @ El Cau
20 – Toulouse, FR @ Le Ravelin
21 – Viareggio, IT @ G.O.B
22 – Rome, IT @ Fanfulla
23 – Ferrara, IT @ Circolo Arci Bolognesi
24 – Mantova, IT @ Arci Chinaski
