The Soft Moon
The one-man project of Luis Vasquez, the Soft Moon gives the darkly hypnotic sounds of Suicide, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Krautrock new life with a stripped-down, lo-fi approach. Vasquez is also inspired by his Afro-Cuban heritage and the wide-open spaces of the Mojave Desert where he was raised. Based in San Francisco, Vasquez released his first single, Breathe the Fire, on Captured Tracks in March 2010. That September, Parallels followed, and the Soft Moon’s self-titled debut album appeared in November. Darker still was the Total Decay EP, which arrived in late October 2011. Vasquez wrote many of the songs that ended up on the Soft Moon’s second album, Zeros, while on the road, and enlisted the help of engineer/producer Monte Vallier to turn them into the streamlined tracks that appeared upon the album’s October 2012 release.
The Soft Moon célèbre les idoles cold et new wave avec une classe rarement vue chez ses contemporains. One man group à l’origine, découvert par l’excellent label post punk Captured Tracks, The Soft Moon convoque avec brio tous les atouts de la musique sombre : voix sépulcrales, guitares tordues et désaccordées, claviers caverneux et tensions rythmiques binaires. Leur musique habitée forme un tunnel noir, aussi fascinant qu’effrayant.