Laying down roots at Oberlin College before officially becoming a band in Chicago last year, it has not take Moontype long to start turning heads. Despite having no music online, the three piece (composed of singer/bassist Margaret McCarthy, guitarist Ben Cruz and drummer Emerson Hunton) began playing in their adoptive city in 2019 with only a pair of Bandcamp demos to their name and quickly started appearing on bills with buzzing acts like Strange Ranger, Horsejumper of Love and Paear. This led to them capturing the attention of the rising Chicago label Born Yesterday (helmed by Deeper‘s Kevin Fairbairn and the increasingly ubiquitous engineer Greg Obis), who have recently garnered an expanding national profile with releases from DIY circuit up and comers Landowner and Cafe Racer. Today, Moontype are announcing their signing to the label with their single “Ferry” which is premiering via The FADER.
WATCH: Moontype’s “Ferry” video on YouTube // FADER
The track, described by FADER as “a gauzy Midwest fantasy,” is an arresting example of Moontype’s sound, one that is startlingly fully-realized for a band who have yet to release their first album, and of a songwriter in McCarthy with a rare ability to communicate her perspective with a relatable clarity and a transporting depth. There are suggestions of the intimate songwriterly-ness of Tomberlin or Lomelda, blended with the sweeping, technically-minded indie of Built To Spill, and even hints of the downbeat grandeur of Mazzy Star in a track that sees McCarthy relate the alienating feeling of a gradually dissipating friendship. Immediately engaging and emotionally acute, it’s the kind of sure-handed first offering that provides a tantalizing suggestion of what’s to come from an extremely promising new band.
“‘Ferry’ is a song about the loss of friendship, not when it breaks apart quickly and devastatingly but when it slowly unravels and you watch it go,” McCarthy explains to FADER. “3 or 4 of my friendships made their way into this song. I think about a friend who was about to go on a two-year long tour, and I started to drift away from him months before he actually left – a trick the mind plays to make the break less painful. Your friend leaves and afterwards you’re left with these visceral memories – running around the city at night, drinking whiskey in the alley – and in memory form those experiences gain potency, like ‘ah that was really living, and what I have now is nothing.’ And that vivid memory stands in high contrast to the way their entire personhood is slowly fading from your mind, you forget how they walk, what kind of jokes they made. And then you’re left with only yourself and you realize that you’ve defined yourself through the relationships you’ve been in, and when those people go away you feel like an empty shell (no snail inside!) and that feeling is enough to make a person say ‘I wanna take the ferry to Michigan! Get me out of this place!’”
“Ferry” is available to purchase on Bandcamp.
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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]
