Moin dissects underground '90s rock like mad scientists. Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead initially formed the group a decade ago as an outlet apart from their drone-y electronic group Raime, then rounded out the London trio with percussionist Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga, Vanishing Twin) in recent years. And very quickly, Moin has uncovered the upside-down of an overly mined era of rock skronk.
If 2021's Moot! was Moin's take on piercing, hi-def post-punk à la Shellac and Unwound, then Paste manipulates and muddies the waters with muted moods. There's an uncertainty about authorship throughout: Are the riffs recycled and reshuffled via software? Are the drums sampled live and then looped? Like The Books' carefully edited collages, it's a musical sleight of hand that thrills in its quiet motions, especially on "Hung Up." Based around Magaletti's hi-hat breakbeat and a harmonic riff that recalls early Mogwai, a woman monologues about a phone call gone wrong. But over minimalist-inspired repetition and variation, a second guitar begins to spiral and sputter, electronics glitch and the cymbal sound reverses in a way that tears apart the simple fabric of the song.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
