MOURA – Axexan, Espreitan (2022, LP/CD/CASSETTE Spinda Records)
RELEASE INFO:
Label: Spinda Records
Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Standard Edition (Black Vinyl), Hand-Numbered, 400 copies
Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear Purple Vinyl, Hand-Numbered, 250 copies
Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Orange Marbled Vinyl, Hand-Numbered, 150 copies
Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Digisleeve edition (including 4 cards and vinyl-effect compact disc), 200 copies
Format: Cassette, Album, Limited Edition, White Cassette, 50 copies
Release Date: 27 May 2022
Moura is an exciting new band, hailing from A Coruña, Galicia. Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra…
Moura, have not taken their name from the small city in the District of Beja in Portugal…
Moura is a kind of a mermaid or a spirit from Galician mythology…
The Enchanted Moura or, Moura Encantada (enchanted female Mouros) is a supernatural being from the fairy tales of Portuguese and Galician Folkrole. Very beautiful and seductive, she lives under an imposed occult spell. Shapeshifters, the Mouras Encantadas occupy liminal spaces and are builders with stone of formidable strength…
Back on March 03, 2018, on a cool Saturday night at the club Lost n’ Found in Athens, I had the chance to experience a live gig by the Spanish band, Fogbound. It was there, that I came across Fernando Vilaboy, the organ player of the band… Fast forward to 2022… Fernando is the organ payer of Moura! (Fernando Vilaboy was also in the bands: Elephant Band, Fogbound, Mega Purple Sex Toy Kit, One Of These Days & Thee Heavy Random Tone Colour Lab)…
Moura have released their self-titled album “Moura” in 2020 through Spinda Records. The follow-up album “Axexan, Espreitan” (also via Spinda Records) is a fact and we’re here to write a few words about it…
The band members of Moura are Diego Veiga (vocals, guitars, organ – also in One Of These Days & Thee Heavy Random Tone Colour Lab, among others), Hugo Santeiro (guitars, vocals), Fernando Vilaboy (keys, Theremin, synths, vocals), Luis Casanova (drums, percussion), Pedro Alberte (bass), and Belém Tajes (vocals, percussion).
There’s a short note on their Bandcamp page that I’ll have to mention because I believe it will make it much easier to understand the band and their music, it says:
“MOURA are the echoes of the druidical chants sung in the Ancient Age, megaliths in kaleidoscopic vision, guitars like bard harps, and feet dancing around the fire on the last cliff of the planet. A coven of progressive psychedelic mist with folk roots and Galician mythology using the Galician language as a communal ritual voice that pursues the collective trance”…
“Axexan, Espreitan” consists of 8 compositions/tracks in a total duration of 40:54, four on each side of the album. The first side is called “Axexan” and the second one, “Espreitan”. All vocals here are sung in the Galician language, a language that has the same age as the Spanish, but the Spanish people cannot understand it! The opener “Alborada Do Alen” starts, and I’m wondering “What’s this? Tangerine Dream or an unreleased Stranger Things Theme Remix?”… Wow! This record is going to be very interesting, exciting too… Oops! Vangelis just came in! This could easily be music from a futuristic sci-fi film! The next one “Romance De Andres D’ Orois” blends with the previous (I forgot to tell you that all songs here are mixed, there’s a continuous flow to the music), the soundscape breaks by a chanting voice, slowly the scenery has become dark psych progressive and quite cinematic, the violin adds an early Canterbury aura while by now the atmosphere has become very 666-ish… “Pelerinaxes” is an instrumental with acoustic instrumentation (at the beginning), the vintage keys make it sound like a good old progressive-rock tune, while I can detect a kind of a bucolic edge at the track… The “Axexan” side closes with “Baile Do Denton”, and let there be… Kraut! Under an incredible Hallogallo-ish beat the track is masterfully being transformed into a Magnificent Hawkwind-Space-Prog tune! (Is this a bagpipe towards the end that plays games with a theremin???)… The “Espreitan” side begins with “Alala Do Abellon”, a weird tune with a creepy-like intro, a track that acts as some kind of a distorted liturgy, though towards the end the Shaman-like ritual becomes more psychedelic… “Cantar Do Lino” is an acoustic proggy tune with a rather adventurous orchestration while “Encontro Cunha Moura Fiadeira En Dormea” has blending beautiful female/male vocals under a soft n’ proggy environment, the guitar tries to flirt a bit with a late 60s West Coast sound before it becomes really heavy, the 70s Prog-keys are making the whole scenery, epically Prog! The album closes with “Lua Vermella”, a track that starts with a dreamy acoustic guitar, male vocals, and a softy Prog soundscape, but after a while, Heaviness covers the place, by now the song has become strangely Heavy under a slow and kind of torturous background, it’s almost Doom but with an Epic-Pagan-Prog touch… Moura delivered us a very good album, a set of songs that are so simple but simultaneously so artistically complex! This is one of the Best albums of 2022! Grazas Moura!!! TimeLord Michalis
Tracklist
A1 | Axexan I Alborada Do Alén | 3:06 | |
A2 | Axexan II Romance De Andrés D’Orois | 6:25 | |
A3 | Axexan III Pelerinaxes | 5:02 | |
A4 | Axexan IV Baile do dentón | 4:46 | |
B1 | Espreitan I Alalá Do Abellón | 4:47 | |
B2 | Espreitan II Cantar Do Liño | 2:21 | |
B3 | Espreitan III Encontro Cunha Moura Fiadeira En Dormeá | 5:13 | |
B4 | Espreitan IV Lúa Vermella | 9:14 |
Alternatively, get it through SHINY BEAST Mailorder
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