John Toohill’s Swimming Faith is a label, and ever-growing universe, whose recent releases have been the surf-music-in-space of In Space by The Hamiltones and the visceral electronic hardcore of Turquoise Window by Brute Spring. But now comes more cosmic surf music with the modern-retro vibe of Moon People’s new album Lunar Secrets.
Had you bought In Space you would have received a bonus 7” featuring the first low gravity releases from Moon People. Their lunar activity is powered by a Casio DG-1, a ‘digital guitar’ which replaces all guitar and bass parts on the album. So, instead of the twang of metal-wound strings these tracks wobble and trill in all their synthesised glory, sounding like the kind of thing composer Wendy Carlos would have recorded if she had done a surf movie in space after working on the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange.
This is music for off-world nightclubs travelled to in wood and brass spaceships. It’s the kind of thing that channels the music you heard in 60’s TV shows played when they introduced ‘far out’ characters, such as Star Trek’s ‘space hippies’ in the episode The Way To Eden (in fact the guitar ‘Adam’ plays could be a proto DG-1). The hiss and warp of cassette is intrinsic to the sound here and, from the opening bars, you can feel your body wanting to go-go dance in zero gravity.
My advice is to fire up YouTube and play Lunar Secrets along to Georges Méliès 1902 film A Trip To The Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) as there is only a minute’s difference in their running times and they work perfectly together. So, pull on your space suit, set the countdown, prepare for ignition and get ready to blast off to a groovy adventure where you can hang ten in space.
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Review by Paul F Cook
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