Black Moth Super Rainbow

Bio Black Moth Super Rainbow

The modern musical unit known as Black Moth Super Rainbow (comprising vocoder wielding front man Tobacco backed by four mysterious musical forces known as The Seven Fields of Aphelion, Power Pill Fist, D.Kyler and Father Hummingbird) first emerged from an obscure Pennsylvania forest glen in 2003.   Over the next few years, their peculiar beat laden, Rhodes, Novatron and vocoder driven sound developed, and the cult of BMSR began.

Let’s rewind to 2000.  Tobacco and Power Pill Fist form satanstompingcaterpillars and subsequently release their music on various labels, including Fuckeroo (Flower Slides) and Side 8.   After their third album in 2002 (The Most Wonderfulest Thing), the band added three members (Father Hummingbird, The Seven Fields of Aphelion, and Iffernaut) and changed their name to form Black Moth Super Rainbow.  

BMSR first began releasing their music on their own 70’s Gymnastics Recording imprint in 2003.   Many of the tracks from the satanstompingcaterpillars era have appeared, often reworked, in bonus reissued albums, though most of their work from that era would never resurface. In 2006 BMSR collaborated on an album with Austin’s The Octopus Project under the moniker The House of Apples and Eyeballs which was released on US indie Graveface records.

BMSR subsequently signed up to Graveface and with the release of their naturally-sweetened, candy-coated, and acclaimed 2007 treat, Dandelion Gum, a number of curious listeners bent their ears and adjusted their listening habits to incorporate Black Moth Super Rainbow’s oddly creepy and off-beat sweet audio adventures.  A string of tours supporting big brothers Flaming Lips, Aesop Rock and MGMT followed and they’ve now garnered many musical admirers from Diplo to The Go! Team to Wayne Coyne of the Lips (who named the song “I Was Zapped by the Lucky Super Rainbow” after them).  The band followed up Dandelion Gum with 2008’s Drippers EP which featured legendary Minuteman Mike Watt on bass.

Their new full length presentation for 2009, Eating Us, promises to up the ante on the fidelity and melodies that BMSR have become known for. It’s the first domestic European release bought to you by Memphis Industries.   Here, the merry cryptic band has added some new flavors to their already well-established rainbow of sounds, with even more dense layers of lushly complex orchestration, intensely rhythmic drumming from a live, human drummer, vocoder vocals that are anything but robotic, and thick, undulating bass tones.

Eating Us marks the first time BMSR has ventured into a modern recording studio, being partially tracked and fully produced by Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Weezer) at Tarbox Studios, who was the only choice of producer for notedly anti-studio BMSR. Only Fridmann’s hands and ears were trusted to keep the freaked out wiggles and hairy candies fully in-tact, while also expanding them in a more realistic space.

This music agreeably dwells in contradiction; the songs contained herein have a feel both earnestly nostalgic, and hauntingly futuristic. Should the robots working in our factories, vacuuming our floors, and operating our gaming consoles choose to rise up and revolt, Eating Us could, perhaps, be used to serve as the first indication that our beloved machines had begun to understand the subtle complexities of human emotion.

These beat heavy, hook-laden, eerily comforting sonic capsules are as complex as a circuit board and as contagious as the common cold. For all those whose ears opt take part in listening, be forewarned that each and every track of Eating Us is equally apt to infest the more delicate portions of your cerebral cortex and nest into any readily available nook, cranny, or unprotected cavity of your susceptible brain with a very minimal chance of being easily ousted.