2024 Repress
Debut long player from Moin, a supergroup of sorts (at least round these parts), featuring Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead from Raime, and Valentina Magaletti from, well, just about everything else that's any good... There's inevitably a little of Raime DNA here, particularly the sample and drum loop tensions of 2016's Tooth album, but the presence of Magaletti's superhuman drumming prowess means Moot! is a far less austere affair. The guitars here are also suitably aggy and abrasive, which immediately made me think of Black Flag's Process of Weeding Out, but this is a little further evoled than that, extending sonically from that post-punk/hardcore/industrial period in Chicago, Wax Trax co-existing alongside Albini, Tortoise emerging just over the horizon. Tortoise and John McEntire do feel like accurate reference points, actually, given Magaletti's virtuosity and the application of dance music production techniques within a 'rock' idiom, like say how Standards ended up being released on Warp. As smart and sharp as Moot! is, i have to say that it's the energy they manage to create that's most compelling, possessed of a blistering band-like quality that takes this out of the studio and puts it on the stage. Inevitably will slay live, which might not be the point - "the record was made as an experiment, to be enjoyed, not as spectacle". So yes, enjoy (including that album cover, which is joint top for cover of the year with Family Underground right now). There's little other choice. And look out for more Moin/WOE connected news next week...
