NEW MUSIC: Moon Attendant - Dum Evol

Brighton’s pop-freaksters Moon Attendant team up with Go! Team’s leader and drummer Ian Parton for new LP ‘DUM EVOL’. Following their debut ‘One Last Summer’ with this incendiary, heart-pounding, drum-led masterwork full of untutored surf-guitar, Scarlet Rivera style fiddle, psychedelic orchestration and sharp-playful lyrics, all within 30 thrilling minutes

Since their debut, Paul Blewett and Nick Holton had been knee-deep in experimental music and needed something or someone to smash the shit out of the new songs. Instead of making heavier music, the result left lofty but wobbly structures teetering on fractured Giacometti-like frames, exposed, more arresting. Paring back the Musical palette from previous wash of synths and reverb to surf guitars, Moog, and violin, leaving Blewett’s vocal (often compared to Colin Bunstone) leaning into an unvarnished, direct sound like Jimmy Campbell. Thematically, Dum Evol turns inward. Where their debut asked questions, this record sits with the answers, exploring love, conflict, and growth as experiences that must be lived first hand – “It’s such dumb evolution, you still have to learn the hard way”. Their lyrics get under the skin and under The Establishment in a wistful worm like way. Nudging at the truths. Smiling but always ready to bare some fangs.

The fantastic instinctive violinist, Roger Proctor, joined as fourth member, bringing raw fragile beauty to ‘Look the other way’ & ‘Difficult Ifficult’, blending swooping string lines with the monster-surfing-Sonic Youth racket elsewhere. They explain – “We kept to a first take policy generally as it keeps everything just fresh and daisy like.”

DUM EVOL’s restraint allows the band’s more experimental instincts to land with greater weight. Musically, the record occupies a space somewhere between the slacker-rock nonchalance of Pavement and the gypsy swagger of Dylan – ‘Desire’ through a lens that is consciously, almost defiantly, English. It’s a sound that channels the 60’s pastoral folk tradition alongside the sharp-edge of The Auteurs, an honest version of England. Jagged, lived-in, and entirely vital, Dum Evol is a record that feels fully realised, yet remains dangerously built to unravel in a hair’s

“Moon Attendant marry analogue electronics to a lovely burbling pop sound, like Felt exploring the recesses of krautrock. Trippy, ramshackle and a cult in waiting.” Shindig!

Produced by Moon Attendant

Recorded at Church Road Studio & The Oaki Room

Mastered by Collin Jordan at The Boiler Room, Chicago

Cut by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios, London

Moon Attendant can be found on their Bandcamp and Facebook pages