Maybe you missed it: The Moonband - Songs We Like To Listen To While Traveling Through Open Space

The Moonband – Songs We Like To Listen To While Traveling Through Open Space
self-released 2009

[tags: folk, mostly acoustic, 2009]

Listen while reading:

We Don’t Care (from Songs We Like To Listen To…)

In The Garden (from Songs We Like To Listen To…)

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Records that are featured in the ‘Maybe you missed it’ category have one thing in common: they were not released in the current year. I admit that it is a bit odd to feature them in this particular category at the beginning of January, but nevertheless it has to be. And so The Moonband and their recent output Songs We Like To Listen To While Traveling Through Open Space is a candidate you may have missed in 2009. And besides that, it is one of two records I wanted to write about in 2009 but did not manage to do so (the other one is the Daniel, Fred & Julie release).

Hailing from Munich/Germany the five band members – Eugen Mondbasis (vocals, guitar, banjo, bouzouki, harp), Chris Houston (vocals, guitar, slide, percussion), Katrin Bobek (vocals, mandolin, ukulele, banjo, glockenspiel), Andy Henningsen (upright bass) and Elena Tschaffon (percussion) – celebrate the big band folk spirit like not so many other bands I know. This means that the music is no input overload for your ears and that they have the talent to feature all the mentioned instruments but to keep it chill at every moment. And so I would call this a folk, maybe alternative folk (whatever this means) album with lots of heart and lots of soul that goes by very soft-footed.

The album comes loaded with 13 tracks and very different styles (even though I call everything folk). Roll On Blues is a bit more rock orientated with some blues structures, Devil’s Got A Piece Of Us could be a nice lullaby song, The Hiker is more of an americana track with very present vocals and We Don’t Care (for me one of the outstanding tracks on the album) is a nice little folk pop thingy with wonderful melodies. As you see The Moonband delivers the whole spectrum of folk on one album. Fascinating about this is the fact, that the result is very cohesive and never sounds like one track would not fit in.

I have to give away a big Thank You to Das Klienicum for introducing them to me, because I think The Moonband is a great discovery for every lover of folk music, especially if one is searching for good folk music coming straight out of Germany. And with all this said, I really, really recommend to buy one of the superb looking CDs coming in a great digipack with great photos and booklet (‘The Moonbook’) with all the lyrics and additional notes. I can’t believe they released such a great sounding and great looking debut without having signed to a label yet. To buy your copy, you have to e-mail them directly and the e-mail address you find on their official homepage. For more music, check out The Moonband’s MySpace.

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