It’s hard to believe that Moin’s debut LP Moot!, given the band’s evolution over the past four years, now almost seems like a conventional post-rock record. Three albums in and the London trio continues disassembling its rhythm-focused experiments, leaning further into jazz and mutating their approach as they bring in new collaborators. Or rather, on the gripping “Belly Up” EP, bring past collaborators deeper into their world: Qatari-American writer Sophia Al-Maria, who contributed to their previous album “You Never End“, appears on ‘See’, a killer of an opening track that also features the frantic saxophone of Ben Vince.
Moin is made of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead (Raime / Blackest Ever Black) as well as long time collaborator and percussionist visionary Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga / Vanishing Twin).
“To obliterate the edge of my understanding in the way that things oughta be,” as Al-Maria puts it, seems to encapsulate Moin’s M.O.: interweaving the furious with the languid, the way impending doom masquerades as routine. Even when they create a mood of obvious disorientation on ‘I Don’t Know Where to Look’, they’re quick to supplant it with another one. Look at it a few years from now, they seem to suggest, and it’ll sound completely different.
Going belly up, guess it’s always a possibility.
released May 9th, 2025
The Fat Angel Sings 