I found, after a very pivotal listen to this EP, which took place heading along a highway to Burnie, that M.O.I.O. was Good Car Music, and that will tell you something about anything.
We all know the importance of the car to the formation of Rock itself, but the actual feel of speed on highway was never described with more sonic accuracy than Krautrock – that infectious beat describes forward motion like nothing else. The kraut beat gave birth to many children, and its minimal beauty has travelled great distances, shifting its form but never loosing that forward-to-the-future drive – whether hypnotic or interrogative, the sound of the autobahn is a watershed of vast proportion. We hear it in the ecstatic drone of the Spacemen Three, the OCD compulsion of Suicide, the groupthink of House Music and all its squiggly mutant children.
It’s also present here, providing an essential spine for a crafted, considered music that manages to satisfy intellectually and thrill the body into rocking right the fuck out. Yes people: M.OI.O is thinking headbangers’ music,with krautrock influences.
Y’know, this stuff is a music writer’s dream. There’s so much to get your teeth into: Kraut-metal-punk that negotiates space so that the music can stretch out but not become thin. Sinewy and muscular without delving into masculinity, the band’s name is appropriate and enigmatic. It’s mechanical, but not in the traditional way. It flows like mercury, each drum thud becoming a controlled explosion: destroying vertically but leaving the head floating free, nodding uncontrolled.
So much springs to mind –the groove-driven throb of lost Australian metal titans Christbait, the controlled glide of Justin Broadrick’s music – as well all I’ve already mentioned.
Importantly for me though, there’s more of a move into some kind of secular trance ritual that sets this apart from it’s many influences, and gives this unpretentious band a small but well carved niche in the rich tapestry of modern heavy music.
This Ep is sketchbook and map to an interesting future, and introduces a band well worth keeping an eye on, for one thing I am certain of, is that blending and tweaking isn't done yet - this is a watchmaker of a band, and whilst we can see the mechanics moving, the sense of obsessive craft that this band emanates will ensure that more and better is to come
If intrigued by my gushing sycophancy – and that was my aim – get in touch with band.
try their
myspace, and you can hear what I'm rabbiting on about.
