Black Moth Super Rainbow advances the electronic genre with ‘Eating Us’

Nothing accompanies psychedelic electro-groove quite like fur.

According to Pittsburgh-based… Nothing accompanies psychedelic electro-groove quite like fur.

According to Pittsburgh-based group Black Moth Super Rainbow’s Web site, its latest release, Eating Us, comes as a “deluxe hand-numbered CD version that comes in a hairy sleeve.”

Black Moth Super Rainbow’s description of the deluxe release of its new album provides an accurate characterization of the band itself.

For a spacey, dark whimsical band like these Pittsburgh locals, hairy sleeves are the way to go. And it isn’t the first time the group has used eccentric packaging.

Whimsical packaging accompanied 2008’s Drippers — EP in the form of a scratch-and-sniff cover. Why hairy sleeves vs. smelly covers? The band members said, “Scratch ’n’ sniff is too 2008 for us.”

Just as the package oozes its psychedelic style, song titles speak to the almost incomprehensible meanings behind the spacey music.

Lyrics get lost in the overtreated vocals, but they are so often random and bizarre, they seem almost unimportant. The song name makes the composition more interesting, but lengthy poems aren’t necessary to flesh out the emotional current.

A narrative thread exists, but it’s more in feeling than the reverberating words that passes them off as lyrics. A story emerges through the lens of the robotic and out-there sounds, and snippets of succinct thoughts help the listener understand just enough to be in the right mindset, but not to overpower the listener’s response to the music itself.

A complex vocal arrangement over the chimes and disc jockey beats of “Twin of Myself” would sound gaudy. With understated vocals, attention falls where it should. Instead of a microscope to words and vocals, a perfect blend appears.

Vocals spread in between clean, grounding keyboard solos and warbling noises that sound like they come from a mandrake from the “Harry Potter” universe. To mask that weirdly beautiful blend with robotic sounds would distort the essence of the music.

“Fields Are Breathing” keeps the vocals to a minimum but still has that same fuzzy style. Even the more traditional sounds transform into some sci-fi robot jam. The band makes a choice — a strange one that flows smoothly into the uncharted. Listeners hear a discordant blend of spacey echoes and the rhythmic tap of percussion buried under some android’s distant groove.

When BMSR does throw in a line or two, the story doesn’t become much clearer. “The Sticky” treads the line between edgy and weird in a Beck-like, deceptively experimental style.

“You and me / We’re going to melt away like apples in the ground” holds a poetic, mysterious weight, but it has no clear meaning.

The spacey, robotic vocals and band-of-few-words act to serve the band’s purpose well. BMSR is far from generic, and it isn’t just the interesting and inventive titles.

Song titles spark a listener’s curiosity, asking why “Iron Lemonade?” Why use “American Facedust” as a title?

It’s about deciphering meanings, finding form in a few robotically recited phrases and stand-alone instrumentals.

Listening to Black Moth Super Rainbow is like looking at a Magic Eye poster. You can only see the image of the dolphin or rocket ship with unfocused eyes in a messy and cluttered field of color and design.

Only by letting go of the analytical part of your mind’s ear can you fully appreciate the image that BMSR paints.

You might not see spacecrafts or marine life in the field of music, but you’ll know that the “Fields Are Breathing” just from that low, opening harmony. The band breathes life into what should be a mash of sounds and words.

That life allows listeners to answer one question with certainty — what is Eating Us? Nothing at all, it seems, because Black Moth Super Rainbow is super spacey and quite the treat — even if it is a little hairy.