Moin - EP (2013)

Duo Raime (Tom Halstead i Joe Andrews) pod novim imenom. 
Kako golemim čekićima nacrtati oblak na nebu.




www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Zk1bQNOj4

So, the cat's out the bag; Raime are Moin, who dropped an amazing side on that Confessions split with Pete Swanson last year. Here they return to that captivating sound on BEB proper with three tracks of lean guitar, muscular bass and cracking drums optimised and arranged with effects and sequencer. The project is evidently in tribute to that whole other side of their combined tastes, the one that looks to Steve Albini's Rapeman, Bill Laswell, This Heat or Dylan Carlson for inspiration, rather than Photek or Shackleton. Yet, just like Raime, everything is perfectly measured and economical, mixed with cutting precision and spatial dynamics, and most of all, built to last with a craftsman's appreciation of tone, texture and shape. A-side features the taut exorcism of 'Murphy', with its spare but shocking exhortations and collar-straining drums, plus the wrenched guitar strikes and post-punk bass prods of 'Stacie', laced with cryptic, ritual Japanese vocal stabs. Flipside, 'Clancy' is the one; snares slice thru the mix like skinny knuckles to the temple and guitars are hacked with metal-tipped fingers into clouds of aching black feedback harmonics. - boomkat

As Raime, Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews honed a doom-laden aesthetic that culminated in their first LP, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line. Their side-project Moin debuted anonymously on a split 7-inch with Pete Swanson on Confessions Series, an offshoot of Blackest Ever Black. That one sounded, well, like Raime but with added live instruments, but here they refine that sound. Their debut EP retains their trademark oppressive and alien qualities, but swaps enigmatic spookiness for a raw post-punk energy .
"Murphy" opens with a sludgy, Earth-indebted bassline and heavily reverberated guitars. It's as funereal as ever, but the live drums set it apart from the minimalism and sharp surfaces of Raime. "Stacie" pits an alien vocal sample against squalls of feedback and dry toms. They save the heaviest for last with "Clancy." It has a massive riff cloaked in layers of feedback and distortion, with drowsy bass and frenetic drums adding even more weight.
The Moin EP and releases from crust punk/black metal outfit Raspberry Bulbs and Peter Rehberg's band Shampoo Boy seem to herald a less electronic-oriented direction for Blackest Ever Black. The records may not all be as original as, say, the Raime EP, but they're all fantastically executed, and provide a welcome shock to the system. -   Maya Kalev

Moin’s EP begins with a murky statement of purpose, without deviating from the distressing spoken-word sample/slow, billowing doom chords/lock-groove percussion of their debut track off last year’s “Positive/Elsie” split. “Elsie” held its own against Pete Swanson’s gutpunch delirium on the opposite side, but it also successfully announced itself as something new. It was like mini-Mogwai, with only the essential block-shading, and all the better for it.

Moin — the duo of Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews, a.k.a. Raime — continues in a sketchy fashion on EP, combining rote arrangements with a firm grasp of how to set an enthralling table with only a few sonic scraps. Considering the austerity of their components, it’s strange how not-boring these three songs are. This should be Matt Damon-punching robot music, or better yet, Arnold murdering a punk rock Bill Paxton. But it’s not. It’s simmering and spitting with haywire, kinetic negative energy. It’s like Valhalla Rising: it’s stout and it’s sickly and it’s stately and it’s all over with too soon.
Hopefully there will be more sooner than later, as it’s rare to hear four more promising opening salvos of a project. As with Raime’s Quarter Turns and everything before it, there’s an endlessly fascinating spaciousness to their queasy processions. The songs are like rooms, with unpainted corners of dusty gray that possess no dimensional limit. But just as much Moin is the wall, perhaps marble and frigid and smelling of tobacco snot and pigeon. Moin is the door swinging shut, the passageway. You can pass through, but you trap yourself along the way. Raime is either less accessible or just a different, riverbottom type of inaccessible, compared to Moin’s unapologetic, icy-rock composting.
However turgid and potentially depressing it all may be, this impeccably crafted EP (already sold out, of course) is yet another reason to pay close attention to Blackest Ever Black. It’s an invigorating kind of downer, one that makes you feel destruction’s power in the moment as much as its devastating after-effects. It’s the shutdown. Make hoopla. Clatter them lunch trays. One eye blinking, one dry and lidless. Metal filings and ocean breezes blowing. - Willcoma

Moin AKA Raime have a new EP out following their split single with Pete Swanson. I don’t remember hearing that one so this is new music to my ears. I didn’t get the Raime album at all though so I’m not sure what to expect with this one.

‘Murphy’ is the opener and it’s a huge heavy syncopated repetitive slab of drumming which is the driving force of the tune. It’s smothered in discordant guitars and feedback and some occasional random vocals. It reminds me of something from the Skin Graft label from years ago. Totally not what I was expecting!

‘Stacie’ kicks off with some nice loud echoey drums, a rumbling bass line and more abrasive guitars. It’s all reminding me a little of early This Heat as well. There’s lots of space in the music for the songs to breathe so despite there being lots going on nothing sounds cluttered.

I’m just flipping over to the last track ‘Clancy’. Man this is huge! Awesome harsh guitars over a crazy ass drum beat, there’s some bloke shouting stuff and a throbby bass. This is by far the best thing I’ve heard on the label. There’s shades of Sonic Youth, Ut, all sorts! It’s pant wettingly good!  -Norman Records