by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
New York’s Mushfoot arrive like “a rose from the concrete,” a band making beautiful music out of harsh production and thickly layered noise pop. The trio, comprised of Greg Albert (The Rainbows, Spite FUXXX, Celestial Shore), Katie Vogel (Relatives), and Ian Davis (Relatives), formed remotely, like many new bands in this pandemic era, trading files and ideas back and forth, building upon each other’s sound and vision. What began as demos eventually became Time Before Land, the band’s full length debut album. Due out September 30th via Moone Records (Helvetia, Caustics, Tashi Dorji), the album is a brilliant mix of gorgeous yet haunting dissonance, fuzzy manipulated psych, and warped cosmic pop - an ever shifting galaxy of unpredictability wrapped in a false sense of familiarity.
The album’s first single and opening track, “Stay On It,” presents Mushfoot as both serene and dense, with the pulse of electronic sludge crawling over simplistic rhythms. The distortion lays itself out like a thick blanket covering all in sight, but there’s a gentle hum to its would-be-menace, a dark but comforting effect. Vogel’s warm vocals may have a lot to do with that, with a sweet melody deeply engrained in the shadows and layers, but the song’s sense of aural dread is really offset by dreamy discordance and a supernatural groove. Influenced by a neighborhood sign that read “Take Care of Each Other,” the band shared that the song “is about trying to continue to show up during a time of so much crushing fear and uncertainty.”