Music Review // Moss & Jones – Amateur Astronomy
Music has a funny way of
affecting your surroundings. When we first heard Moss & Jones it was via
the digital world when they appeared on a previous edition of our monthly
mixtape, but when the listener gets deeper into their work it soon becomes
clear that this music belongs in another time altogether, way before the
internet decided to impact our lives so much.
With the crisp harmonies
and vocals reminiscent of pure folk there is a timeless quality that makes the
whole album endearingly eccentric in a wonderfully British way. Of course, we’re
not ones for geographical based generalities but there is nowhere else the
unique sounds on Amateur Astrology could have originated. There are ukuleles,
whistles, lullabies and even a bit of Latin thrown in for good measure and the
whole combination works wonderfully.
The aforementioned Latin
appears in the ear worm that is ‘(There’s No Such Thing As) Wandering Stars’ and
it is as is a Tudor period court band have traveled forward in time and bought
their magical sounds with them. The chant like intro to the song is an almost
spooky moment in album full of quirky whimsy and magic. When that segues into
the wonderful I See The Moon and then into the lilting lullaby that is
'Millbrook' it’s easy to find the sense of melodic humour that makes album so very
endearing to the ear. (Listen out for the ice cream van…)
The rest of the album continues
to emphasise the duo’s medieval like sound, especially on the addictive and
eloquent ‘Ella Brown’, perhaps one of the darkest moments of the album and a
very obvious first single. This is the kind of music one might hear on a
Parisian street and be unable to resist stopping to listen and with those beautiful
harmonies and strings as well it’s easy to understand why.
As a whole then ‘Amateur
Astronomy’ is an album that will appeal easily to those with an ear for the
unique and beautiful things in life. Its timeless mix of choral harmonies, majestic
medieval court style performance and British Folk influences is certainly a
factor involved in the album being so endearingly fascinating to listen to.
(S.Rashii)
