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Black Moth Super Rainbow: Crazy name for a crazy band

These Pennsylvania-based bubblegum freaksters have a new album
PHOTO COURTESY GRAVEFACE RECORDS
Image by Ashley Goetz
PHOTO COURTESY GRAVEFACE RECORDS

Black Moth Super Rainbow WHAT: âÄúEating UsâÄù LABEL: Graveface Records WHAT: Black Moth Super Rainbow WHEN: Friday, May 22 WHERE: Triple Rock Social Club TICKETS: $11 If some sort of perverse doomsday device replaced the worldâÄôs breathable air with a floating mixture of helium and ether, Pennsylvania-based experimental band Black Moth Super Rainbow would be the ones to play us off. The innovative sextet would politely blast out their unique brand of electro-psychedelia amidst disheveled deck furniture as civilizationâÄôs ocean liner sunk into a dreamy tomb. The group, which apparently works out of an enchanted forest on the border of Pittsburgh, clash and meld analog synthesizers, vocoder-pulverized vocals, thumping bass and raucous live drumbeats to create an acid-dipped freakish fantasy sound teeming with electronic pop, folk and delicious weirdom. The bandâÄôs 2007 double-disc LP âÄúDandelion GumâÄú was a whimsical folktronic pop journey complete with scratch-and-sniff album cover and the fan-favorite tracks âÄúSun Lips,âÄù âÄúMelt Me,âÄù and âÄúLost Picking Flowers in the Woods.âÄù Their upcoming full-length release âÄúEating Us,âÄù is produced by none other than former Mercury Rev bassist Dave Fridmann , who is also a producer for the Flaming Lips. Fridmann is a logical choice, considering the bands have shared the stage and are sonically akin. âÄúEating UsâÄù is a phantasmagoric journey weaving both new and old BMRC soundscapes together in a candy-coated bridge into enigmatically eerie territory. From the spaced-out anthem âÄúGold SplatterâÄù to the delightfully quick and beat-driven âÄúThe Sticky,âÄù this album delivers an ample amount of dreamy, crazed pop music. Yet itâÄôs not all alien. Within Black Moth Super RainbowâÄôs dense thicket of blasted mellotron tones, melodious lyrical loops, sonic warps and eruptive crashes, there remains something mysteriously organic about the end result. Maybe itâÄôs the blazing analog wavelength or the indispensably caffeinated drumbeat pushing everything along, but for whatever reason there exists a natural current stringing it all together. ItâÄôs this elusive and untraceable quality that gives Black Moth Super Rainbow their appeal. After six albums, a slew of EPs and almost a decade in the game (counting their time as Satanstompingcatterpillars ), itâÄôs hard to think that the same brand of electric Kool-Aid acid music could keep creatively moving forward and avoiding the all-too-common pitfall of formula. Apart from a few static moments, âÄúEating UsâÄù does just that.

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