Before expanding into a trio with Ben Cruz on guitar and Emerson Hunton on drums, Moontype was the solo project of singer-songwriter Margaret McCarthy, and a handful of songs on their remarkable debut album, “Bodies of Water”, are reworkings from 2018’s spare Bass Tunes, Year 5. Throughout the album, the group’s diverse musical sensibilities and palpable chemistry elevate McCarthy’s intimate song writing, which largely reflects on the changing nature of friendships; how susceptible they are to forces beyond our control, and how the need for them never really goes away.
She makes interesting connections between people and landscape: “I’m thinking about the world as being alive, like, geologically, but I’m also thinking about people and relationships and emotional change. And I think that those two things kind of melded inside me somewhere,” she explained in our interview. In a similar way, the band’s fusion of styles evokes a yearning for connection through transcendent choruses that wash over you like a tide, but they’re equally capable of crafting a sticky hook as they are jumping into jazzy, math-rock territory. Whichever direction they move towards, Moontype retain an earnestness that’s echoed in their quietly unassuming yet powerfully evocative music.
Moontype is Ben Cruz, Emerson Hunton, and Margaret McCarthy.
Born Yesterday Records, 2021 released April 2nd, 2021
The Fat Angel Sings 