The first official collection of new music to be released under the
Moles moniker in over 20 years,
Tonight's Music picks right up where 1994's
Instinct left off. Curious, ramshackle, and unapologetically rough around the edges, the two-disc, 24-track set is more sprawling than it is ambitious, but like everything else that the enigmatic
Richard Davies (
Moles, Cardinal, Cosmos) lays his hands on, the results are, more often than not, mesmerizing. Recorded sporadically over a long period of time in Boston, New York, and Western Massachusetts,
Davies carries the bulk of the proceedings on his own, but
Sebadoh's Bob Fay, former
Sugar member Malcolm Travis,
Free Time's Dion Nania, and Jarvis Taveniere of
Woods pitch in as well. By keeping things relatively lo-fi, there's little to separate, at least sonically, the material on
Tonight's Music from the band's early-'90s output. Fans who swooned over the
Pavement-meets-Skip Spence-inspired, jangle pop weirdness of songs like "Wires," "Bury Me Happy," and "Accidental Saint" will find new faves in "Artificial Heart," "Dreamland," and "Head in Speakers," all three of which deftly balance pure pop craftsmanship with psych-tinged, backwoods freak-folk.
Davies' love of cut and paste, noise-rock sound collages can be a bit much, especially for newcomers, but for every foray into space there's an oddball earworm lying in wait. Whether it's the lumbering, dirge-like "Space Fever," the outlier punk stylings of "Damien Lovelock," or the desert bohemia,
Camper Van Beethoven-esque road trip jam "Slings and Arrows," the laconic, yet always present
Davies imbues each moment with equal parts of wit, warmth, and vitriol. ~ James Christopher Monger