Geography Of The Moon - Fake Flowers Never Die

Geography Of The Moon. Fake Flowers Never Die. These monikers alone invoke all of the sounds that play out through this slow release album. Playfully sombre with a wry new wave smile, smoked half-lit melodies just off optimistic. Take a trip through its warm post-punk lullaby textures and rest up in its sub-goth pop sonics. As we join up the dots between the ethereal 80’s, dark-twee 90’s indie, and their 2000’s revivalists War Paint and Frankie Rose (to mention just a selection), it’s hard not to soak up the nostalgia. There’s what sounds like a love for the songs as they’re crafted and a patience for stripped down delivery. Looped clean guitars and minimalist pulses, honeyed vocals that flow, ebb and float, touches of folk psychedelic… It’s a full blown concoction with an easy dirt-free lo-fi glaze. Between A-side highlights and a B-side that flies by, ‘Fake Flowers Never Die‘ is an intriguing slice of deceptively slick new wave indie.

Of the tracks that stick close to that sometimes too-worked template of clean loops and kitsch sample drums, ‘Deadbeat Poet’ outshines those around it. It’s wistful and breezy, self-deprecating, easy on the surface with mean words below. If there was a sweet spot between Courtney Barnett and the second act of Joy Division’s ‘Closer’, GOTM have nailed it down beautifully.

Where additions cut through they are welcome. The thin violins of ‘Muse Prayer’ and ‘Ikaria’ add the depth and the husk of their strings. The airy synth organ that runs through ‘Deadbeat Poet’ gives the song its low end shine and glow. And while there are fine cuts scattered throughout the first half, it’s the next side that shows off the album.

‘Fleeing Lights’ is a sarcastic cathartic half-anthem that ramps up the speed and sly humour. There’s a gleefully vengeful delivery to the vocals and a tag-line it’s tough not to sing to. ‘3 Years 2 Days’ brings in home brewed electro as it runs like a B-movie chase scene. Insomnia twists with the alt-indie jangle that ripped through C86 compilations.

While some tracks might play safe and get lost in another, these three show off the want and willingness of this duo to drift out in surprising directions.

Rats On The Run

Formed in London, UK, in 2016, Geography Of The Moon is a collaboration between singer/pianist Virginia Bones and multi-instrumentalist /producer Andrea AKA Santa Pazienza. After touring for several years they moved back to Glasgow where Andrea’s family is originally from.

Largely influenced by bands from the 80s and the the 90s, somewhere between psych rock, post punk, new wave and indie rock, they create their own brand of mashed up styles: Psychwave. Tongue in cheek lyrics and hypnotic looped layers of guitars, synth and drum machines.

The band has been played on BBC Radio 6 and BBC Scotland, and named in Vic Galloway’s - 25 Scottish Artists to Watch in 2021.

Their latest LP Fake Flowers Never Die is now out on TeenFreaks Music. All releases can be found on bandcamp and other listening platforms.



Releases:

Fake Flowers Never Die LP, 2020

The Sunshine Makers Club EP, 2019

Permanent Summer LP, 2018