If you are one of those people who need their music neatly boxed and labeled and separated by genre, like one of those fussy eaters who can’t tolerate the different food types of their meal touching on the plate, then you might find Books of Moods a bit of a challenge. But if you look at it another way, no matter what your favorite style of music – be it indie, pop or rock, the familiar or the fresh, the comfort zoned or the challenging, you will find plenty to love in their latest EP, Gaia.
The title track gives you an excellent taste of this cross-genre cross-pollination, but for me, it is “Dreams,” which explains what they do so well. An accessible alt-pop sound threaded through with indie sonics and gorgeous banks of sixties-infused vocal harmonies, shimmering sounds that border the world of psychedelic pop, and just enough drive to keep things bouncing along under its own steam. A song reminiscent of Reuben’s Daughters, another band reinventing pop music’s potential.
“Space, Pt 1” (interestingly, there is no part 2 found here) bounces along on folky lilts and shimmering indie deftness, like a song from those first few Bowie albums that, sadly, few bought at the time and “Slow Day” is a hazy pop piece that seems to fade in and out of consciousness as it runs along, less because of structure and dynamic and more as if it moves ephemerally between the solid and the insubstantial.
Books of Moods makes music that is meditative and transformative; it is music that you allow yourself to be drawn into, cocooned by, which you absorb as much by some sort of process of osmosis as you do access by the usual audible sense. On the surface, they are great songs, music uniting all parts of the music map, but their charm lies in their depth, their ability to make you think beyond mere music; portals, if you like, to different planes and new sonic worlds, other ways of thinking, and less earthly adventure.
When was the last time a piece of music did that?
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