As the summer sun streams through my window, cats soak up the warmth of the pavement outside and a warm breeze scatters the last of the tree blossoms along the street, the delicious sound of Moon Cub’s “Utopia 90” drifting from the speaks feels so perfectly in tune with such a vista that it is as if they had captured it in a sonic painting.
Deftly balanced between trip-hop and an ambient-psychedelic take on pop music, it is the term “blissed out” personified, a blend of chilled-dance beats, liquid keyboard sonics, hazy, heavenly harmonies, and a saxophone that gorgeously lingers on the edge of hearing.
The product and first collaboration between husband and wife Rob (best known for Luna Waves) and Suzy Muir, it’s a song that will resonate with anyone old enough to remember the ’90s trip-hop boom – a sound that coalesced in the alternative basement dance clubs of Bristol, UK and, having gone overground, turned its leading lights, such as Portishead, into international stars.
However, as much as many of the reference points for “Utopian 90” lay in the past, the cyclical nature of music means that this is less music made on a head rush wave of nostalgia, but perhaps is a portent of a new golden age to come. We can only hope.
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