Big Good Angel

BIG GOOD ANGEL is a six-track mini-album that marked the end of the first phase of Moonshake's five-year career, which was defined by a curious and apparently schizophrenic band "vision". Approximately half of the songs were written and sung by Dave Callahan (who was responsible for the sorely under-appreciated band Wolfhounds) and the other half by Margaret Feidler (who went on to form Laika after leaving Moonshake).
Callahan's songs trade on distinctly funk-based grooves augmented by twittering synthesizers and strange samples, while Feidler's material is built on subtly, looping grooves, influenced (but not too obviously) by Krautrock bands. Meeting over a shared love of propulsive bass lines and oblique lyrics, these two created their masterpiece in BIG GOOD ANGEL--six nearly perfect slices of experimental rock. All the tracks are exceptional, but arguably the best are Feidler's "Two Trains", which features slivers of distortion set to a frenetic, rattling beat that has more bpms than you could safely dance to, and Callahan's twisted take on family life in "Seance", which highlights a mid-tempo beat shot though with glittering metallic sounds of indeterminate origin, and synthesized growls. A brilliant 24-minute long collection.|