Perth four piece Moana have been capturing hearts and attention nation wise since their formation in 2013. Known for their live presence and ability to enchant an audience the crew have just unveiled their new EP titled The Trilogy of the Black Monsoon.
An artistically inspired leap for the band, the release is a collaborative mix of both music and visual art, broken up into three staggered parts released over 2015.
To celebrate its release and to get to know a little more about the EP the band have kindly given us a track by track run down on the release which you can check out below. If you like what you’re hearing be sure to visit the band’s Facebook page for more info on upcoming shows and releases.
Golden Orb
I have a strange fascination with the insect world, particularly the social and sexual interactions of female spiders. To me the Golden Orb symbolises power…
Raw power and danger, not taking any shit, standing up for what you believe in, living a life of passion and vivacity, fighting the system. It’s a very attacking song. It’s intended to make you feel intimidated or threatened, perhaps uncomfortable just as the spider does to her fly and her mate.
It’s a big “fuck you” to a lot of things that make me angry and people who float by not doing anything about all the bad shit. The Golden Orb doesn’t float, she fucks and fights ‘til the day she perishes in her twisted arachnid dream.
Magenta Dust
I wrote this song during a time I was a little bit obsessed with the 18th century Romantic Era of literature and poetry. If you read closely you’ll notice some of the lyrics borrow from the one and only John Keats.
I rarely write love songs, but ‘Magenta Dust’ is one. Or maybe a lust song, a lonely song, a lament. I feel that back in the era of Romanticism lovers faced much tougher and epic times – distance only conquered by ships and horses, sickness that was incurable and quick to attack, how long it would have taken for a letter to arrive (and if ever it actually did), forced into marriages for land and social status…
I took myself into this world and sort of dramatized my own romantic situation because at the time it felt so massively overwhelming to me.
Cloud Mother
‘Cloud Mother’ was originally written for a short play I wrote and changed many times before being the finished song it is now.
Lyrically it deals with the concept of ‘in-between states’ – dreaming, a coma, near-death, childhood, psychosis, being stoned or high or drunk or just the general feeling that sometimes we sleepwalk our way through life.
It’s a song about having your head in the clouds, existing as if always in-between, never fully touching the ground and never immersed in the sky. Dismantled fragments of heaven, directionless yet endless… Not knowing yourself, being frightened by yourself.
The moon high above the cloud creatures is the unobtainable love, the forever-changing monument, the keeper of our lunacy keeping us longing for a place to plant our flying feet.
Creature Beyond Human Feature
A longing to escape the parameters of our physical human body and break free, be more, be magic. To return to the ground and roots of the under-earth from where we came.
Elephant Bones
The song was written while deeply submerged in the Cambodian jungle that reminded me ever-so of Frida Kahlo and her art.
Kahlo was a woman of immense talent, energy and fierceness, but was dealt a life of physical pain and struggle. I felt like through the song I wanted to help her break free and soar beyond that like she seemed to crave through her art.
The song took me into the surreal world of her paintings and led me to the magic child, the tiger’s song, the blossoming dancers in a chaotic and enchanted jungle.
At some point it inevitably turns to the dark side… Do you cower in fear? Or do you dance in the darkness to wherever it may lead you, even if it means death? Seek the madness unknown.
Vader
‘Vader’ is a song about taking hold of your inner villain, your inner trouble maker, your inner dominator and walking the world with your suffering as a crown and your teeth bared. To be human is hard when you feel like you’re so much more.
The song toys with these comic-book concepts of Heroes and Villains as an expression of our longing to be bigger than we are, to dramatize our life through art and make ourselves stars all as a way of dealing with the strangeness of life.
Although it’s quite aggressive, it’s a song of wild love and the hope for human unity. Spare the few witches…
The Black Monsoon
The ‘Black Monsoon’ is like the black dog and the dark storm that forever lurks in the mind. It’s about knowing and acknowledging the darkness and the light as both equally important in our never ending quest for enlightenment and understanding.
“I look to the sun, but I followed the moon”… I acknowledge the light, I love the light and the day and the love it brings. But I fully accept and realise I am a creature of the night, obsessed with my own darkness and the depths of the world and that within that realm there is a deep unknown we should forever embrace and that is where I will be dancing eternally, even if it destroys me.
