The Moles - 1994 - Instinct

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5

Although still sporting the name of The Moles on the cover, this is really a Richard Davies solo album as the rest of the band is no longer around. Davies was very much the leader of the proper band, but without the rest of the group, the sound here is extremely different. The garage-psych wildness of Untune The Sky has been replaced by much higher production values and baroque arrangements.

Even more notable is Davies completely fractured, yet masterful songwriting on this short album. There is still a great deal of pop to the melodies, but the songs here are completely unpredictable, constantly lurching in strange directions and displaying an almost total lack of logic. These tracks really seem to have been beamed in from a neighboring dimension. It can be a little off-putting at first, but it's never less than fascinating. All the song elements are familiar (no particularly cosmic sounds or studio trickery here), but they're all ordered and recombined on totally unfamiliar ways.

The album opens with a dirge-like horn arrangement, and nothing but drum fills for a rhythm track on "Minor Royal Charge." Lyrically, this is equally strange as Davies admonishes us to "drink until you're blind, and you'll sing like Ray Charles."

Still rhymically skittering, and almost threatening sounding is the "rocker" "Already In Black." It a musical iteration of Hunter Thompson's observation that "you can turn your back on a man, but you can't turn your back on a drug." Davies is rocking out with no linear sense of logic.

If there's a flaw here, it that the songwriting is so disorienting that it's sometimes hard to keep track of what's going on a grabbing the bits that emerge from the baroque ocean. Maybe this helps explain why the album is only 23 minutes long. "The Crasher," as in party crasher, closes the disc with a return of the horns, a touch of buzzing guitars, and just a few moments of a groovy party beat.

I really haven't heard another album like this one, even from Richard Davies. It's like taking the random, unpredictable sound of Skip Spence's solo album Oar, and handing them over to a scientist intent on working the sound theory into some complicated quantum law. Nevermind the 1994 date, this belongs at the top of any pile of psychedelia.

Buy Me:
The Moles - 1994 - Instinct

The Moles - 1991 - Untune The Sky

Quality: 5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

The Moles' Untune The Sky is simply one of the unheralded peaks of neo-psych. This Australian group, headed by the exceptionally talented Richard Davies, managed to eke several new angles out of shopworn psychedelic influences while throwing a few new curveballs of their own. According to the liner notes, the band recorded this with the help of copious amounts of beer. This may be true, but judging from the warped recordings found on the disc, they very well may have spiked it with something a little stronger.

The first two tracks of the album establish the band's battle plan. "Bury Me Happy" opens the disc with a hazy Byrds/early-REM 12 string riff and some happy monks sort of harmony. Davies' top rate pop songwriting hits this one right out of the park and the somewhat lo-fi recording quality adds in a cloudy atmosphere that works perfectly for the song. The entire album is pretty lo-fi for that matter, but it gives the impression of hanging out in a really kick-ass basement club.

The album then plunges into lysergic weirdness for the maniacally shifting "Tendrils And Paracetamol." It's quite unique as the parts of the varying parts of the song are almost like something a prog rock band would do, but the punkish acid-soaked playing erases any notions of prog. It takes a few listens to really get this one, but it is yet another highlight, so make sure to give it more than one chance.

Amazingly, almost every track here has something amazing to offer. Davies continues to work out his pop mojo on the groovy "Rebecca" (featuring the strange chorus of "Wonder free fall Rebecca"), and power-pop like "Europe By Car." The groups harmonies are often strange, yet alluring. Check out the demented singing on "Breathe Me In" for a highlight. On "Lonely Hearts Get What They Deserve" and "This Is A Happy Garden" nail the more dreamy ballad-esque side of the psychedelic coin.

Matching "Tendrils And Paracetemol" for disturbing freakiness is "Nailing Jesus To The Cross." Over a background of buzzsaw guitars and hammering percussion is an all-too-happy vocal singing about the title subject. The album proper comes to a fantastic close with the Beach Boys-nicking title "Surf's Up." It has nothing to do with the Smile track, but lives up to its name with cascading waves of guitar and organ.

Added on to this CD compilation is the four song What's The New Mary Jane EP. The title track matches anything on the album, although the other three tracks don't display quite the same level of songwriting. Still, the production values are a little better and there is some wild experimentation, especially on the closing "Let's Hook Up And Get Some."

Buy Me:
The Moles - 1991 - Untune The Sky