Sonic Pieces - SP014/022 2LP / 2CD

2LP standard edition. Cover printed in- and outside with full tone colors + printed innersleeve
2CD standard edition. Handmade cardboard packaging

Moon Ate the Dark I

Moon Ate the Dark is the shadowy moniker of Welsh pianist Anna Rose Carter and Canadian producer Christopher Bailey. Between them, the two London-based transplants make a soundtrack to longing, memory and displacement and inject fresh life into the solo piano subgenre.

Anna Rose Carter’s prowess has been witnessed before on a slew of releases over the last few years, but her delicate touch gets dragged into deeper, darker crevices thanks to Christopher Bailey’s reverberating treatments and smart microphone tricks. Take ‘In Fiction’ – at its core a simple repeated note, and yet the note is dragged into a rhythmic swamp of reverb and creaking sound to emerge on something more akin to Kreng or even Deathprod than any of the duo’s solo piano contemporaries. That’s not to say that the album isn’t incredibly beautiful at times, but the darker moments serve to accentuate a track like ‘She/Swimming’, which brings to mind the pastoral warmth of Virginia Astley or Peter Broderick with its bright, twinkling optimism.

‘Moon Ate the Dark’ is an album of depth and complexity; a record which would be equally at home on the shelves of avid early 4AD fans as it would in the ranks of any contemporary classical collection. And with a subtle sense of pacing and space, Bailey and Carter have created a record which echoes through the last thirty years of experimental piano music without necessarily sounding exactly like any of it. This should be something we can all cherish.

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Moon Ate the Dark II

With their second album Moon Ate the Dark is taking the next step of contemporary piano composition. Moving on from their well-received debut album in 2012, Moon Ate the Dark II is based on an extraordinary playful and varied approach to melodies and drones with dedication to subtle, yet complex details.

The combination of Anna Rose Carter’s piano, violin and keyboard playing and Christopher Bailey’s electronics, amplifiers as well as organs and synthesizers creates something less shadowy than their first album in favour of a more melodic, still thoughtful endeavour that manages to virtuously move on the thin line of nostalgia and optimism.

While the shorter pieces of the record are mostly based on lively piano tunes completed by forceful electronic components, the attentive ‚Sleepy Vipers’ is dragging the listener into drones and violin that slow the pace to create an engaging high mark in the duo’s recordings underlined by the excellent production that will grip the listener until the very last notes of the wonderful closing track ‚Lo’. Moon Ate the Dark II is an impressive achievement and evidence of how diverting a meeting of two parts can be if they match as perfectly as this.

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