Moom - Toot
Cat No: DELEC CD / LP 035
Release Date: 24th July 1995
[Track Listing] [Lyrics]
[Credits] [Reviews]
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Track Listing
- Prelude - 0:59 (Moom)
- Sally - 5:40 (Moom) - lyric
- Astronought - 6:16 (Moom) - lyric
- The Void Is Clear - 4:14 (Moom) - lyric
- Babbashagga - 4:25 (Moom) - lyric
- The Higher Sun - 5:14 (Moom) - lyric
- * The Crocodillian Suite - 10:13 (Moom)
- The Egg - - lyric
- The Crocodillian
- Mayam Riff
- Waiting For The Sphere - 5:16 (Moom) - lyric
- Eye - 6:25 (Moom) - lyric
- I Can't Remember The 60s...
...I Must Have Been There - 12:51 (Moom) - lyric
( * Extra Track on CD)
Lyrics
Sally tried but she couldn't find a way
To make the nasty things decay
Just like her mother told her
Then one strange and misty night
She ventured into inner space
And left behind her childhood place
In hope she could find
The goddam awful mess they made of her mind
Sally found a bright and nicer place
It split and angels formed a face
That spoke a million tongues
Then the ether turned to light
One part of me is your mind
The other's what you left behind
Sally my dear
No-one's gonna hurt you as long as you're here.
Flying, flying, caught the wrong plane home
Darkness, darkness, and I'm all alone
Drifting, drifting, earth and moon below
Here I stand with egg on my face
And my face all over the place
Space is a nice place to be when you're far out like me
Stillness, stillness, sight and sound are one
Softly, softly, swiftly to the sun
Peaceful, peaceful, soon I will be gone
Sausages sizzling in a frying pan
In jumps the bacon to do what it can
To oust the sausages from the pan
Oily mutterings in a terrible land
In jump the mushrooms to do what they can
To oust the sausages and bacon fro'
Strange to mention my helicopter tortoise collection
Get off my land before I fly away
Good woman, speak to me only with your breasts
And Sarah... have you seen the pess?
Eric and the rector sitting in the church
All at once the virgin mary burps
And spreads her holy wind throughout a thousand seas
A hint of trouble in the air
The wind was crisp and the wind was square
The escapologist knew his hair
Would part in the wake of the bass.
Vapour fleas seize the breeze
Hot airs rise, changing all in size
The fluff of heaven travels as it builds
The cables pull the wind across the hills
There's a whale out the back, and it's jumped into a sack
It's purple and black (with space all over)
And it's giving off heat
Why does it speak to me
I don't know about you but it's sending me signals
Oh!... and everything's starting.
The higher sun will leave it's shadow
And rest our minds with a shine
I believe she's evolving with the earth.
The Crocodillian Suite
i) The Egg
The specks, the waves
On insect hives
Presents a telescopic fly
One day he'll come by
(With his ants all digging around)
He knows, a lot of something small
Is something big
The microbes make a bid
An ant can throw a pig... Then there was an egg!
Waiting for the crocodillian x 2
Waiting for the sphere
To get itself down here
I doubt we'll see these pictures on the cube
O.K. scientist
Now prove what it is
Am I wrong or is it just the truth
Always on it's side
Ready to arrive
The brainbox central always has a place
Already designed
A continent of mind
United Neuropeans spreading sense
I threw a punch and the punch threw me
Hit me a bit like a dotted line
Hit me a bit like a sign to stop
All of these things are making us
All of these things are making us... red
I jumped the line and the line jumped me
Didn't look bad at the time
Didn't look bad at the time (to take it)
Back home for tea at a quarter to five
Everythings cool and sunshine survived.
I Can't Remember The 60s...
...I Must Have Been There
Try not to catch all the fish
That live up top of the stream
Or the folks down here will surely fry
Well I know it ain't much
But it's a prophecy and at least that's a start
Climb to the shelf
Where the green grows
Very far away
From the lines
Chalked around our minds
And when the rice has turned to wind
The bones will rise again... we shall not be moved!
Credits
"Toot" (previously known as 'The Helicopter Tortoise Collection' was recorded at 'The Egg Room', Northampton 2-6 August and mixed 9 - 11 August 1993.
Moom would like to thank Karen, Charlotte, Sam, Duncan, Rachel, Louise, Kieran, Dom, David Farmer + Helen for the "donations". Thanks also to Graham for the guitar synth, Matty for the drums, St. Michaels Rd Music for the hammond lizz tonewheel + 760 series leslie, Tiz Hay + Charles I from Progress, Bones, Phish, Dead + Heads, Robert John Godfrey for generous use of 'The Egg Room', Candy for Dij on "The Higher Sun", Toby Kay who plays the wibbles on a Korh DW8000 throughout the album. Thanks + respect to Brendon and Andy for dancing and hollering, love to everyone who's been there over the last few years and to all Moomers anywhere!
Recorded by Robert John Godfrey and Mike Pool.
Mixed by R.J. Godfrey, Max Read and Mike Pool.
Produced by Moom.
All lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Delerium Music.
Photo's by Claudine Schafer
Press Reviews
- Deliverance Aug / Sept 1995.
- EB Musikmagazin Autumn 1995.
- Crohinga Well Autumn 1995.
- Audion November 1995.
- Progress April 1994.
- I/E Sept 1995.
- Hartbeat June 1996.
Deliverance
After seeing this band live, I said that I could not wait to hear them on vinyl. I was not disappointed. I suppose that they could fall into the category of those groups loosely described as typical English. A sense of tranquility immediately sets as soon as you begin playing this, and hearing some of the gorgeous melodies. It really is a delight. There are so many highlights that it would be unfair to pick out one track above the rest. Similarly it would be unfair to single out one of the band members as this is a true group effort with each musician playing his part well. Simply a very excellent debut
EB Musikmagazin
A sound which goes back to the mid-sixties. The Wild Flowers, the predecessors of Soft Machine, carried it for the first time into the hearts of the fans. Caravan, Kevin Ayres, David Allen and also Soft Machine made the music perfect, which is named after the county from which all these musicians came - Canterbury style. Over 20 years later there is only one group which saved this mild, mystical psychedelic rock into the 90s - playful, simply, elegant keyboard mystique, mellow guitar improvisations, beautiful vocals and a jazzy rhythm group, lovingly modernised and made perfect, beautiful to dream to. (Uwe Filges)
Crohinga Well
Moom hail from Northampton, where about five years ago Andy Fairclough (keyboards), Greg Nyles (drums) and Jim Patterson started a band called Medicinal Compound. This trio for reinforced in 1992 by old schoolmate Kristian Hartridge (guitar, vocals) who played a few years with Blim in Birmingham, and Toby Kay (strange noises). Moom was born and the group gigged a lot, playing amongst others a festival in Wales and a residency at the local Psycks club. By late '93 Moom had saved enough money to finance some recordings and it took them just nine days to do the cassette "Helicopter Tortoise Collection" in the studio of Robert John Godfrey (of Enid fame) who also did the mixing. The tape sold well to fans but still nobody outside of the local area knew about them. Through the Enid connection Moom managed to get a gig at a London festival in 1994 and as a result the band were featured in the progressive rock magazine Progress. Ivor Trueman of Delerium read about them, got hold of their tape and soon offered them a contract for an album. "Toot" is a collection of the best tracks from the tape, displaying stunning skills of musicianship that evokes names like Caravan, Kevin Ayers, Help Yourself and even Miles Davis. This is a versatile LP indeed, containing tracks with a Canterbury sound (the Caravan-like "Sally" and "Waiting For The Sphere") and a lot more as well: "The Higher The Sun" sounds like an old Kevin Ayers track, "The Void Is Clear (I Say)" is brilliant, typical British, humorous prog rock with a political / social edge, strong reggae rhythms and a burning lead guiar, "Eye" takes us back to the Californian sixties with its Santana-like West Coast vibe, while the real piece de resistance is the long "I Can't Remember The 60s (I Must Have Been There)", about 13 minutes of psychedelic rock with cynical lyrics and a definite Allman Brothers guitar ring. And there's still more, especially if you buy the CD version that contains an over 10 minutes long extra track: "The Crocodillian Suite", more Canterbury sounds (in three movements). An impressive debut by yet another new English quality band. Investigate and enjoy this bright kaleidoscope of different rock styles.
Audion
I'd heard much about this album that was touted as being in the spirit of classic Canterbury music. But, for long, I've learned ro be sceptical about such claims. And, it seems I was right to be so! Okay, Moom do play a 70s type fusion rock, light and wordy, with a touch of psychedelia, but their comparison to the likes of Caravan, Kevin Ayers, or Egg is purely superficial, in that Kristian Hartridge occasionally resembles Richard Sinclair (and that is Richard Sinclair nowadays I mean with his deeper voice and less articulate manner). Moom are not a bad band though, with much invention and eccentricity of their own, and are also clearly a 90s band paying homage to a classic era of 70s progressive music. Really they should be judged for their own creativity, which here seems a mite crammed and muddled in tracks that all too often don't really whip-it-out enough. A few tracks do get the room they deserve however, and this is where they shine. A promising debut, hopefully they'll develop and blossom. (Alan Freeman)
Progress
I should have learned by now to expect the totally unexpected when a new release suddenly materialises to quickly dive into the hi-fi system. Upon reading the notes on this release by Moom, I note with interest Robert John Godfrey wearing the producer's hat.
It is, thus, all too easy to expect a closely related result. Here I am vaguely expecting an openly declared love for grand, eloquent symphonies and beginning to nod at the quiet, almost pastoral brief intro when; triumphantly emerging out of the fog; a sizzling hot electric guitar completely changes the imagined scenario! Yes, I should have known better, but I was thankfully immediately drawn by Moom's creative eclecticism.
The question is: can the listener empathise with the music without any preconceived views lurking about in the brain? Quite a challenge in fact, as most reviewers appear to think in terms of shelving and stacking, when approached by out and out versatility.
Thus it is true that Moom are asking us to expect the unexpected. Several bouts of aural revisitations have so far yielded such a plethora of feelings and emotions that the listener keeps hearing things on this album that fail to materialise at the next exposure.
After quickly reassuring the reader that I am not suffering from mystical hallucinations I shall proceed to tell you how good Moom are at sowing up different styles without showing the patches. Now that everything almost appears to have been done before in the world of popular music, cross-referencing to eventually form a much larger and personal vision of tuneful events can be fraught with disaser, at worst, or freshly invigorating at best.
If you use a scalpel you might find that the eventual reconstruction never quite seems to fall into place, but if you carefully choose the right elements and skilfully sow them together, chances are that the dividing lines will be practically invisible. Thus Moom expose the listener to a wonderfully concocted melange of Canterbury inflected psychedelia, a haze of mellow vocals of which Kevin Ayers would be justly proud. These include relaxed stretch outs into cosmic jazziness that always keep twisting and turning towards solutions that my brain couldn't possibly think of.
At the end of the album, I am compelled to play it again and again and again, a continuous whirlwind of musical pleasure still unfolding in different ways. This is what music is all about. Charles Imperatori.
I/E
Many bands working the topical space-rock axis possess retroactive elements, but in Moom's case, there's respect for and a desire to eclipse aspects of one of the UK's most beloved progressive rock subgenres: the Canterbury scene. Moom are the off-spring of Hatfield and The North as seen through a '90s paisley veil, with the same finely-wrought chops, wealth of satire and instrumental whimsy. But Moom trip-out more often than their Canterbury cousins: the swimming organs and rippling guitars on "Sally" suggest dances on plasticine corners rather than Saturday nights in a tiny, smoke-filled pub. Toot's aftereffects leave you wonderfully warm as well as fancifully free.
Hartbeat
Laryngitis kept me away from Moom's gig at the London Astoria on 19th December. Their album, Toot has rarely been off my deck these past few months, and thanks should go to our mates at Delerium for signing the band to their ever-expanding, evermore cool roster of psychedelic acts. Formed in Northampton in 1992 by guitarists Kristian Hartridge and Rob Falmer, and Toby Kay (wibble noises - yeah that's what it says here on the press release), Moom eventually settled down to a line-up that saw Greg Myles (drums), Andy Fairclough (keyboards) and Jim Patterson (bass) join up alongside Kristian, and they soon cut an album, Helecopter Tortoise Collection at the local studio (owned by, groan Robert John Godfrey, he of The Enid fame). Released only on cassette, the LP was little more than a 'local' hit until it fell into the hands of those visionaries at Delerium, who relaunched it on CD/vinyl in the summer of 1995 at Toot!
It's a fine summery affair, as English as the heart of an oak and perfect tripping music! Though, readers beware, the vinyl version is missing the wonderful Crocodilian Suite, arguably the stand-out cut, so in this instance seek out the CD! Although very British, the band exude a good-vibes aura reminiscent of the early '70s Grateful Dead - in fact, if you want to programme the ideal backdrop to this column, select their I Can't Remember The Sixties... I Must Have Been There and let it flow straight into disc 2 from The Grateful Dead's Hundred Year Hall and I swear you won't hear 'the join'! The Dead comparisons are neither lazy journalism nor wide of the mark - Jim, Greg and Andy play in the infamous Dead tribute band, The Cosmic Charlies...
I actually started a list of things Moom remind me of - the Canterbury scene (Caravan / Ayers etc.), the Welsh scene (Man / Help Yourself / Neutrons), some of the more rocky early '70s teutonic outfits like Nektar (I know they were Welsh but...), Focus (no yodelling, but I kid you not!), the ubiquitous Frank Zappa, some of the recent Brit 'festival' bands, even a bit of Sly Stoe / Funkadelic! But ultimately Moom are Moom and in their way are as '90s as Oasis or Blur but with a different agenda - they've a cracking sens of self-effacing humour and a mustard-keen sense of experimentation, just like many of the above-mentioned combos once had!
Right now, they're pretty much finished-up with their new album which will feature new member , Mark on second guitar, and which Delerium should be releasing about the time you read this. If you're not convinced by these reams of hyperbole, then check out The Higher Sun, their contribution to Delerium's fab Pick & Mix sampler (2 CD's for the price of 1/2 a single CD), which also boasts brain-warping stuff by the likes of Porcupine Tree, The Steppes, Omnia Opera and a galaxy of other fine grist... (Nigel Cross) [Moom Home Page]