Formed in Pittsburgh in the late ’90s, Black Moth Super Rainbow is the experimental rock project featuring Thomas Fec, who also performs alone under the TOBACCO moniker. With the last BMSR project having come in 2012, SeeFu Lilac is the latest since Cobra Juicy and is the band’s seventh EP. SeeFu Lilac is available through Rad Cult, though Fec has also worked with Graveface Records and Ghostly International. After a Lawrence visit to The Bottleneck in the fall of 2014 in support TOBACCO’s Ultima II Massage, Fec took time to realign with the Black Moth stream of creativity; a project starkly different from his solo work.
The spacious and space-ish SeeFu Lilac appears at first as an LP but of its nine tracks, only “Warm Water Leviathan” exceeds two and a half minutes. The ever-equipped BMSR hold dearly a tool belt of muddy synths, guitar, production, and vocoder-laden vocals with the dazed yet patient approach on title track introducing the EP. “The Chew” soon hits with the spinning, sandpaper psychedelics indicative in any of Fec’s music, but “Umbros Vorhees” is the only markedly TOBACCO track on the EP. So much of Fec’s proverbial watermark-emblazoned sound on SeeFu Lilac and anything Black Moth is in fact an addictive, underwater sound.
The EP blissfully bleeds together without notice and is arguably its best from the second track, “The Chew,” through the fifth track, “Brotherhood of Sisters” before one is woken up again by the submersed synths and vocals of “Umbros Vorhees.” The true, vast beauty of SeeFu Lilac lies in its chameleon-like ability to become the most bleak and removed or the most uplifting and self-actualized depending on the day; qualities found in the best art. Black Moth then unveils the final track, an assuredly analog and resplendent “Warm Water Leviathan.” Fec and Black Moth Super Rainbow are congruent with the band’s warmly warped discography on SeeFu Lilac.
Recommended If You Like: TOBACCO, Lord RAJA, Choir of Young Believers
Recommended Tracks: 9 (Warm Water Leviathan), 4 (Since You’ve Seen Her), 6 (Umbros Vorhees), 2 (The Chew), 3 (Unfinished Sketch 6)
Do Not Play: None
Written by Harrison Hipp on 04/08/16