Today we released Helpless You, a brand new song from the new MOAT album, Poison Stream, whose official release date is next Friday, February 12th. There’s also a video that you can watch on our YouTube channel (please subscribe). The video has images collected by Olivia and they’re put together by Seg in Morocco who has worked on Olivia’s poetry videos (check them out here). It’s a video of crazy cutouts and now we’ve moved to Portugal we get the urge to go and visit Seg in Casablanca. I’ve never been to Africa before, what an experience that must be. I think I could come back from Morocco with quite a few things for the house. But back to the track, it was written in Stockholm and recorded by Dare in Penzance. I sing, Niko and I played guitars and bass (and bouzouki), Ed who plays on Noctorum, Space Summit and Ahad Afridi’s album is on the drums, Olivia is on violin. It’s so nice to have a new track out, especially with some kind of visual accompaniment. I hope you like it.

If you are interested in the plans for the album’s release, on February 20th we are having a listening party. You have to sign up to discord.com, create an account and we will post the link here some days before the event. Niko will be part of it and we will be doing a Q&A after the fact. There will be some articles and reviews in the coming weeks that we will link to when they are completed. Also if you want to like the MOAT Facebook page you can go here, but make sure you go to the right one. The old page is still up and we can’t close it down because we don’t have admin access anymore. So MOAT Band Official is the wrong one, MOAT Band is the real one, sorry it’s so confusing.

Bandcamp is doing their waive-the-fees days again this coming Friday so you can order the MOAT T-shirt, an intimate internet concert, or other material including the remaining copies of the first MOAT album (CD included) which are running out fast. We have those with us here in Porto, so I could autograph it for you. If you would like to order the new MOAT album Poison Stream on CD or vinyl go here. For those of you that ordered the album through the campaign, you’ll be happy to know that UPS got in touch with us tonight in regards to clearing the covers through customs here in Portugal. This means we will have them back to Schoolkids Records in North Carolina (autographed) very soon so they can get them out to you.

Not so much success on getting tubes for the Illustrated Lyrics here in lockdown. As we get them we will send them out to you. We are waiting for mailers from Germany so we can send out the remaining Mystery Boxes as flat packs, also because some of you ordered prints. Those prints will be available on Bandcamp too imminently.

Today’s blog is more like a newsletter as we have music coming out and are pretty restricted here at the moment although we went out into the pouring rain today as Olivia wanted to go to the Asian supermarket. It rained, then stopped, then rained, and then a beautiful light appeared briefly as the sun attempted to penetrate the clouds. I took a few pics in the dying hours of the afternoon and we made our way back to the flat, happy to get out for an hour, even if it was just to the shop and back in the rain.

There were no sessions today but between now and Sunday there seem to be about 10 from tomorrow so a busy end of week and weekend, plus Olivia and I will be filming the Q&A sesh for all the questions that contributors have submitted into the campaign. We’ll be keeping all the silly bits, fumbled words, missing the point stumblings, and mispronunciations. The Songwriting & Guitar Guidance sessions are still available online and a great pleasure to be involved with. In the coming year projects that have come from those sessions will be released for all to hear, including Space Summit, Arctic Lake, Ahad Afridi, and Miller (I think it’s called Miller, haha, better check). Many more sessioneers are planning to do the same including Matt in Brooklyn and Mike and Paul in New Orleans, with the help of Dare, the studio, and all those guitars. Having said that Dare still has to hear them!! Haha. Last but not least Brighton beat Liverpool at Anfield as their decline continues. I knew this was going to happen, I just knew because I mentioned the concept of losing to Brighton in an earlier blog last week. It’s the same fixture that I saw when I was working with The Wild Swans in Liverpool in 2019. The best-attacking force in the world can’t score.

Music today has come from obscure British proggers Jonesy. They made three albums, No Alternative (1972), Growing (1973), and Keeping Up (1973). Lots of guitar, lots of Mellotron, something like Moody Blues meets King Crimson meets Uriah Heep. Great, if you like that kind of thing. This from Prog Archives:

Jonesy were an early 70s band in the style of KING CRIMSON but with the unusual element of electric trumpet from Alan Bown. Other band members were John Evan-Jones – guitar & backing vocals, Jamie Kaleth – lead vocals & keyboards (including some excellent Mellotron), Gypsy Jones – lead vocals, bass guitar & recorders, and Plug Thomas – percussion and backing vocals.

Strongly recommended..!

Music Of The Daze