While such a statement might conjure the holy icons of celebrities on magazine covers or the communal prayers of sports crowds, or even the near-transcendental flutter experienced at the promise of large sums of money, Wallace’s truth is probably a lot more subtle and personalised, centred around our view of ourselves and the yearning for something more. As such, much of the worship goes on inside our heads, small hopes and habits we repeat over and over, as though incantation and ritual might invoke our better selves.

Don’t Hide From The Light, the debut release from PAT MOON, feels like this sensation committed to music. The solo recording project of Portland’s Kate Davis, who you might know as the face behind Track and Field Records, PAT MOON utilises analog synths and drum machines to create what could be described as dark dream dance or ecclesiastical electro-pop. At once insular and expansive, the album feels like a private ceremony within an abandoned church, solemn and serious and sacred in its own humble way, pertaining to no system of belief beyond that of human experience yet feeling instantly recognisable, a likeness of our own inner-thoughts. Such empathy is present from the first bars of ‘Feel You’, the opener possessing that warm-yet-cold feeling peculiar to cathedrals, where death and guilt and love and life are so entwined they become one.

Other highlights include ‘Show Me a Sign’, an echoing, synth-heavy plea for enlightenment, the spectral chorus of ‘I See You’ and ‘Love Me as I Am’, another song that manages to be at once intimate and vast, submissive and resolute, a steadfast hymn summoned from deep within. Closing track ‘Enter My Mind / All I Know is Now’ is imbued with a certain lightness, a candle-lit organ-drone which seems to brighten across its run-time.

With its melancholic seriousness punctuated with near-mystical frisson, PAT MOON’s debut is a reminder that worship is not some hotline for divine intervention but rather a process of feeling and thinking and believing. Sure, Davis may find her prayers unanswered, her rituals unrewarded, but you get the sense that the very process of acting and asking can be a route to confidence and love. One that does not rely on the whim of a deity or the alignment of the stars.

Don’t Hide From The Light is out now and you can buy it from the PAT MOON Bandcamp page.

Photo by Sam Velenne

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a low place at The Old Place is an album that Umhoefer released last year, consisting of six songs which appear as a single track, which comes in at just over 18 minutes in length. Several of the tracks have been previewed on Bandcamp in the past (most notably ’more wrung in the wrong?’ which was the track that introduced me into Old Earth) but this is certainly the definitive collection. The album was recorded in the basement of Umhoefer’s grandparents’ vacant home, where he says ghosts are abound. This eerie atmosphere pervades the entire album and some of the haunting experimentation on show really is rather beautiful. There’s also this strange and ominous side to it that makes the whole thing fell like some sort of weird fever dream. The sparse lyrics provide a perfect accompaniment to the music. Below are the lyrics of ’wait less, more strings’, which I think give a good indication of the atmosphere of the album as a whole:

What if it’s all in the fall? 
What if it’s all in the fall? 
What if it won’t happen now? 
What if it’s all in the fall? 
What if it rains again? 
What if it’s all in the fall? 
What if it’s an old house? 
What if it’s a wait? 
What if it’s an older word? 
What if it’s a weight? 
What if it’s alone? 
What if it’s a wait? 
What if the word was so? 
What if it’s all in the fall? 
What if it’s a wait? 
What if it’s a weight? 
What if it’s a wait? 

The album was produced by Christopher Porterfield of Conrad Plymouth and Field Report (who we are very big fans of), who also lends vocals on the album. Nick Berg and Travis Whitty, two other members of Field Report, also lend their talents to the project. You can buy the album on vinyl, CD or digital download via Bandcamp – and it’s really really good so I would suggest that you strongly consider it.

Old Earth has also recently signed with mini50, a label based in Edinburgh, and has a release, titled Small Hours, scheduled for release in the Spring. I have embedded the teaser trailer (which was created by Blackbox Visual, using footage from Don Ford) below:

Old Earth – Small Hours album trailer from Blackbox Visual on Vimeo.

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Not An Exit is dreamy in more ways than one. The overall sound could be pegged at ‘Dream Pop’ and filed next to Lemolo or Fiona Apple, although the slighly fuzzy and minimal instrumentation conveys a slow serene imagining rather than some vividly ethereal fantasy. The result is a collection of songs that sound confidently crafted and fully controlled, holding the hand of the listener through beautiful oneiric landscape they have created. The EP bubbles away until (my personal favourite) ‘Shipwreck’ dares to break through a little more with it’s desperate refrain. It drags the listener back from the comfortable meander they had enjoying presents the always-just-masked emotion for all to see. It’s a cleverly put together piece that deserves to be played in order.

The other aspect of dreaminess on Not An Exit runs through the lyrics. On ‘Not An Exit’ Brown sings ’Wake up darlin’, wake up to a lucid dream’ and the line heralds the themes across the album. On each song there are references to dreams; Maybe not bona fide nighttime-in-bed dreams, but psychological constructs that we all experience. Imaginings and fantasies, fears and worries, they are all running through these songs to produce something that is paradoxically very real (as in recognisable) while also being fictitious (in that we have no way of directly observing or measuring them).

The fact that I’ve looked so deeply (too deeply?) into these songs is a testament to this duo. They create music that demands repeated listens and makes you think a little more than maybe you would normally, which for a Dream Pop band (a genre which is often focussed solely on nice sounds as a form of escapism) is no mean feat. Buy the EP on Bandcamp where you can also download the title track free of charge.

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