Silly Symphonies. Moon Moon Moon

For me at least, things went quiet where Moon Moon Moon was concerned after four posts in 2017. Reviews of 'Help! Help!' and 'Oohohoo' and two live shows. This is about to change, as last month a new album was released, Silly Symphonies, and what an album it is. Speaking of branching out.

The previous Moon Moon Moon albums were the result of Mark Lohmann working on his own in his bedroom, assembling the sounds and music on his laptop. The albums were the modern kind of lo-fi and DYI. It may be that the new album was assembled in the same way, the way it presents itself, is one of a huge production, filled with orchestras and background vocals.

What has not changed, is the sympathetic and small, modest way the album and music present themselves. Listening to the music immediately brings a smile to the listeners face. What jumps out immediately, are the instrumental interludes. As if listening to a Disney movie of old filled with princes and princesses, sprinkled, shiny stardust all around them. Where did the idea to step so far back in time, musically, come from?

The same nostalgic feeling can be found in the other songs as well. Languorous strings weave themselves around and through the songs, that all contain a feeling of longing, perhaps not so much for something lost, more for something that lies in wait, something that still needs to materialise: the future. Moon Moon Moon used influences to up to 90 years ago, to await the future.

A harsh reality creeps in in the form of a feedbacking guitar at the end of the title song, disturbing the idyll, that is quickly restored in the form of a piece of music from the 1930s, like from a very early Walt Disney comic movie. (The album title comes from a Disney series from the 1930s, I just read.)

With Silly Symphonies Mark Lohmann, in collaboration with Adriaan Pels, has expanded his musical universe tremendously. It moves so wide beyond the two albums that introduced him to me. In fact, it makes him another artist, another band. There are only very small likenesses left. He has even become a different singer. Musically, he (also) refers to albums from the 1970s, with hints to Britpop bands like Supergrass, taking out most electric guitars. Silly Symphonies is all about songs. The joy of writing them, the joy of singing them and the curiosity to find out where the concept of the song can bring him. The latter took Moon Moon Moon a long way. The richness of the arrangements, without ever overdoing it, which would have made the songs sugar-coated, lifts each song to another level, which simply does not compare to the albums of 2017.

Take the song 'Hell'. It starts out very much in kind with Moon Moon Moon's previous work. Small, electronicly compiled and then it branches out, like a flower opening itself to show its full beauty.

Moon Moon Moon may have stepped onto another level, it sits there quite comfortably, with room to grow further in the future. Silly Symphonies came as a nice surprise and kept growing ever since.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Silly Symphonies here:

https://themoonmoonmoon.bandcamp.com/album/silly-symphonies