Staff Reviews

Moon Bros - These Stars

Review by Cai Trefor

One of America's lesser known, yet more powerful musical talents»

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This iteration of Moon Bros. is a network of a few high-minded Chicago improvisers: Matthew Lux (Iron & Wine, Exploding Star Orchestra), Dan Bitney (Tortoise, Isotope 217), and Sam Wagster (Cairo Gang). Matt Schneider's work under the Moon Bros. moniker is time-out-of-mind cooing folk played at painstakingly patient speeds - a decorous and underheard contribution to the ambient folk fray. Perhaps his recordings are projections of future scores to Cormac McCarthy adaptations; perhaps front porch Dust Bowl blues gospel. Either way, Schneider is a pointedly preeminent experimental guitarist in this day and age. Songs aren't so much ‑nite concepts but endless ragas that he taps in and out of; consequently these pieces cannot be entered mid-stream, the listener must participate in the universe as it's created in order to live in it. His reputation is such that top collaborators need not be sought, but are intrinsically curious to participate. On these recordings, he is joined by Dan Bitney (of Tortoise fame), Matt Lux (Iron & Wine), and Sam Wagster (Cairo Gang). Producer and engineer Brian Sulpizio (Health & Beauty) records and mixes. It is possibly the sixth recording by the ever-shifting entity called Moon Bros (named for turn of the century engineers at the Moon Bros. Carriage Company) but the ‑rst three have all been lost, likely forever, possibily irretrievable from a broken CD-R in the bottom of a box of tools and flotsam hardware.
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