It is probably fair to say that I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the last album by these guys, but when I saw that the subtitle for this one is “Ramblings on Darwinistic monotheism and the history of the universe – inspired by the works of Stephen Baxter” I was more than a little intrigued. Daymoon realistically are less a band and more a project, with multi-instrumentalist Fred Lessing very much to the fore, and there are a few songs where it is just him and one other, although there are also plenty where there many contributors. Musically and stylistically this is incredibly varied and complex, and it is no wonder that on the rear of the digipak are the words “Thank you for supporting non commercial music!” One of the reasons for the album being so varied, is that Fred actually started work on this back in 2000 and it wasn’t completed until 2012, so it has been a very long road to get to this point.
Musically this seems to take its’ influences from just about everywhere, mixing Western and Eastern, rock and jazz, electric rock instrumentation with woodwind, and then putting it together in a way that should never make sense, but somehow does. It is an album that does take a lot of work to really get into just because there is so much going on, and it keeps splitting into new areas and tangents, and can be incredibly complex (or gentle and simple with just acoustic guitar and mellotron).
Lyrically this is also complicated, bringing up lots of ideas and concepts, but contained in the booklet are the lyrics (and the all important details of who played what), there are also detailed reasonings behind each song and what Fred is trying to convey. The result is something where the listener gets the most of the experience by going through the booklet whilst playing the album, and concentrating on both. This should never be background music, one just won’t get the most out of it.
This is progressive music that really is refusing to see any barriers, and the album is one of the most diverse I have come across.
www.daymoon-music.com
