For obvious reasons, I’ve had Moon on the thoughts all week. So I used to be making an attempt to determine what I ought to advocate this week that may thematically match. Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks is unimaginable, and should you haven’t listened to it, go do this now. Nevertheless it additionally appeared a bit on the nostril. Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool additionally got here to thoughts. Nevertheless it additionally felt a bit apparent. Then I remembered Kate NV’s Room for the Moon, a document I had on repeat in 2020.
Russian artist Kate Shilonosova chases concepts throughout 11 tracks inspired by Russian and Japanese pop from the ‘70s and ‘80s, in addition to youngsters’s films. This clearly leads Room for the Moon to indulge its most whimsical impulses. It’s a fairytale rendered in snappy Speaking Heads-esque bass, proggy synths, and reverbed drum machines.
The opener “Not Not Not” is sort of goofy, its chaotic melodies consistently dancing round one another in a perpetually disorienting means. It lurches ahead asymetrically, grooving like a flat tire. The instrumental “Da Na” follows, drawing on a well-recognized but barely uncanny palette of sounds. The clarinet (?) drifts out and in of dissonance as if drunk. The tuned percussion components flit round what is likely to be a kenari seed shell shaker or somebody working their fingers over the tines of a comb. It’s actually unimaginable to inform, and each appear as possible as the opposite.
“Sayonara (Full Moon Model)” is the fantastical daydream counterpart to Oingo Boingo’s nightmare new wave theatrics. The least unusual observe on the document might be “Plans,” which absolutely embraces 80s dance pop aesthetics. However even that track finds room for a minute-long instrumental passage that includes a bleating, nearly atonal saxophone solo.
Whereas the sounds are unusual, uneasy, and nearly queasy at occasions, the songs are gentle and fantastical. Regardless of not understanding the lyrics, that are largely in Russian, it’s unimaginable to not get a way of hope from them. Kate NV’s Room for the Moon just isn’t a somber lunar lullaby, however the nice goals of an harmless thoughts.