We always think of bands as essentially an entity that is about playing live but with regular studio stops to record their songs. Sure, there have always been bands that have eschewed the live arena in favor of being solely a studio-based concern — The Beatles and XTC spring to mind—but these seem like eccentric exceptions.
Not only are bands such as moonweather following in their hallowed footsteps, they are also using the available technologies to collaborate remotely with like-minded artists from further away, people that in earlier times would have been out of bounds to them. Welcome to the modern world.
Based around singer Billy Hodge, bassist Colin Hoell, synth-player Bobby Burgess, and more recently Michael Barnett on guitar and multi-instrumentalist Michael Kaple and working out of their basement studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, Fall in the Void is the band’s third album. It wanders some gorgeous dream pop pathways, echoes the mellower end of bands such as Mercury Rev, shimmers with understated invention, and creates some sublime music along the way.
And there is much to love here. I love how a trumpet wanders through “When I Know Her,” a sound more often associated with jazz or Mararchi, adding ambiance and atmosphere. I love the way “Automatic” seems to drift, often seemingly reducing itself to a capella delights, sonics gently glistening like water droplets in the sun. I love the way that “Make You Dumb” bounces along on delicately dancing pianos that act as the beat. And I love the cosmic-indie-folk cascade that makes “Three Stone Pillars” so seductive and soulful.
There is much more to love about the fifteen tracks here, too. But to sum up, it is an album that is chiming and charming, errs on the side of understatement, is subtle and supple and sweet, and understands the beauty of space.
If you want more than that, you’ll have to play (and hopefully purchase) the album. And you should. You must.
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