Primarily the brainchild of David ‘Yorkie’ Palmer (Space, The Balcony), MOONGOOSE also feature Mark Jordan, Alex Griffiths and fellow unsung Scouse cult hero, guitarist Paul Cavanagh (Top/ The Room) and between them, they clearly intend to put a highly individual spin of their own on this here ‘pop’ malarkey.
Their two previous EPs, 2010’s ‘Silhouettes & Shadows’ and last year’s excellent ‘Footprints’ took a shared love of Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and all things Krautrock as the base camp for sonic exploration and proceeded to make fantastic, all-instrumental journeys to lesser-charted poles.
Now their debut LP proper finally arrives, the clue to its heart lies in its title. Again a wholly instrumental affair (like the first EP, it’s again sub-titled ‘Reaction Music’), ‘Organic Technology’ forges an eminently successful summit meeting between man and machine.
Opening track ‘In A Recurring Dream’ gives you a good idea what to expect. Taking off slowly with Aphex Twin-style blips and ambience aplenty, its initial glitch-y, electro premise is gradually subsumed by bass, busy drums and fuzzbox-driven, psych-tinged guitars. Like most of what follows, it’s evocative and scene-setting and would surely work well with a filmic backdrop.
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Crucially, though – rather like Barry Adamson’s equally cinematic ‘Moss Side Story’ back in the day – ‘Organic Technology’ holds its own on purely sonic terms. Drawing on motorik, Neu-style rhythms and the atmosphere of ‘Systems of Romance’-era Ultravox, tracks like the all-too brief ‘At Silver Blades’ and the hypnotic title track exist within a time of their own, while the balmily melodic bliss of ‘Throb (Part 2)’ and the lilting minimalism of ‘An Incident on Pelham Grove’ get under your skin within seconds.
If forced to choose a favourite, the tantalising ‘And From My Window I Look Down On Skyscrapers’ – fuelled by spaghetti western guitar motifs and sultry trumpet blasts – probably deserves the blue riband, but for its overall skill in marrying precision, experimentalism, melody and enigma, ‘Organic Technology’ never really fails in its bid to get the balance absolutely right.
Moongoose online
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