BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW
DANDELION GUM
GRAVEFACE RECORDS
WORDS: AW HENDERSON

Black Moth Super Rainbow wants to play a game with you. There are no rules to their game, nor are there winners or losers. The point is to have fun with whatever implements you can, preferably the ones that make noise. Black Moth Super Rainbow understand if you don't have the hang of it just yet; in fact, they even provide a tutorial at the beginning of their new album, Dandelion Gum. The opening track, "Forever Heavy," essentially includes every element you're likely to encounter throughout the course of the album: see-sawing synth plucked from a spring day; soft, exhaling beats to keep things cycling forward; twittering electro-effects rummaged from a dumpster out behind Boards of Canada's workshop and the waterlogged vocals of frontman Tobacco, a.k.a. Tom Fec, phasing in and out through the sunshiney mess.

It is Fec's voice that sets this record apart from both previous BMSR releases and their obvious uber-influences, Boards of Canada. The lyrics are much more decipherable here than on 2004's Start a People, even if they make as little sense as ever. Most of the time the vocals feel almost too emphasized, as if the band is trying to
stand out from others in the psychedelic folk-electronic genre but can't figure out a good way how. The album works best when their toys take center stage, as on "Rollerdisco," which features a plucking synth echo over an insectile beat, on top of which are layered Fec's translucent baby babbles and other ambient scratchiness. The song's two-and-a-half minutes feel effortless when compared to the rest of the record, which sticks much closer to the processed guitar + synth loop + vocoder + slow beat algorithm. Unfortunately, it comes two years after The Campfire Headphase, and while Gum adds colorful permutations to the BoC formula, it's nothing new.

One of the other few instances where the band jumps into new territory is the track "Caterpillar House," a bombastic standout from the record's relatively sedate mood. It manages to cram Soft Bulletin-style drums, Daft Punk vocodering, and even an Elephant 6-like fuzz factor into under two minutes of raucous fun. Other than this and a few other moments, Dandelion Gum is good lazy listening. A basic pop structure is buried somewhere beneath nearly every track, but one needn't strain to unearth it in order to enjoy the Black Moth guys' tinkering around. The basic approach of citrus colored electronic, a la Dan Snaith, and daydreamy lyrics works pretty well, and it isn't a stretch of the imagination at all to picture the 2000s being remembered down the line for records just such as this.