MMOSS: Only Children 2012

 

Lo-fi psychedelic explorers from New Hampshire, the group Mmoss were founded by guitarist Douglas

Tuttle and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Neveu, who met when they were living in Boston. Tuttle first picked up a plastic guitar when he was four and advanced to a cheap acoustic six-string at the age of six, while Neveu began studying the flute when she was in grade school, eventually taking up keyboards as well.
                

After spending a year working on a noisy indie rock project in Boston that failed to coalesce, Tuttle and

Neveu became romantically involved and relocated to New Hampshire near the end of 2007. Tuttle and Neveu decided to start a new group with a different direction that fused pop, psychedelia, and improvisation.
                  

After teaming with guitarist and bassist Justin Dearmitt (who, in true indie rock fashion, was working at

a record store at the time), they spent several years experimenting with Tuttle's home-recording rig and homemade signal-processing gear, slowly assembling a set of tunes on a four-track cassette machine.
                      

While a number of drummers came and went during the recording process, the core trio of Tuttle,

Neveu, and Dearmitt learned to conjure an impressive range of sounds in the former woodshop where they rehearsed, and in time they collected their tapes into an album they called i.
                  

The independent Burger Records label heard and liked i, and released the album in early 2011. Mmoss's

debut earned enthusiastic reviews in the independent press, and with Rachel's brother Aaron Neveu joining on drums, the group hit the road, both in tandem with Woods (Aaron's other band) and on their own.
            

The Chicago-based indie label Trouble in Mind was enthusiastic enough about i to approach Mmoss

about releasing their second album, and the melodic but ambitious sophomore effort Only Children appeared in 2012.
               

ONLY CHILDREN 2012

                  

From the damp and misty woods of New Hampshire emerges the second full length from psychedelic

jam warriors MMOSS. The songs swirl and shimmer as the vocals waver and glide together like the trippiest acid test light show. 'Only Children' is a decidedly heavier trip than the debut album paring down the sheer number of tracks in favor of expanded blasts of musical mayhem.
          

Lord knows what they're putting in the water in New Hampshire these days, but it seems to be having a pretty remarkable impact on the foursome known as Mmoss, who trip out in a pretty impressive manner on their sophomore release, Only Children. The opening track, "Spoiled Sun," sounds like it could have

been an outtake from the Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, with its languid keyboards, buzzy guitars, and I'm-Over-There-Now vocals, but once the group wanders into the musical ether near the end (and Rachel Neveu starts running her flute through a whole bunch of distortion boxes), the sound gets less playful and more intense, and for all their melodic grace, Mmoss show they can approach this stuff with a focus and cohesion that's the hallmark of a band that's learned the finer points of exploring inner space.
                

Their vocal interplay affirms an affection for the group vocal stylings of 60's west coast acts like The

Rose Garden, Comfortable Chair & The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, taking their melancholic & bittersweet recollections and bringing them to a plugged-in generation. MMOSS is the sound of hippies that took the brown acid and liked it. Live free or die.
              

Mmoss can rock out convincingly, as demonstrated by the chugging power chords and pulsing bass on "War Sux" (an original, not the similarly titled Red Krayola number) and the crunchy but Beatlesque

"Another Day," but the band seems most comfortable when they can follow their bliss on midtempo drifters that make room for Douglas Tuttle's angular guitar patterns (which can rise and fall from gentle to ferocious as the band shifts into jam mode), the dollops of sound from Neveu's keyboards (conjuring tones that haven't been common since 1969), and the implacable rhythms of bassist Justin Dearmitt and drummer Aaron Neveu, who color their surroundings with artful concision.
                 

Mmoss can deliver a tuneful, hook-laden melody and make it stick, but they're also that rare band that

can rave up at length in a psychedelic manner and not lose the plot, and while most of the aural touchstones this band honors are decades old, the final product sounds timeless. Tune in, turn on, and play Only Children, and your ears will be expanded even if your mind stays right where it is.

  LINE - UP

Douglas Tuttle - Guitars
Rachel Neveu - Keyboards - Flute
Aaron Neveu - Drums
Justin Dearmitt - Bass

Mmoss – Only Children
Label: Trouble In Mind – TIM043
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: 2012
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock

TRACKS

                

01. Spoiled Sun   2:05
02. Okay   2:44
03. War Sux   10:30
04. Hands   2:30
05. Marty Hills   5:04
06. Another Day   1:37
07. Another Dream   2:48
08. Wander   8:15
09. Spoiled Son   3:10

Flac Size: 266 MB