Modern Stars - Space Trips For The Masses

Italian band Modern Stars are set to release their third studio album 'Space Trips For The Masses' on November 11th, via Little Cloud Records. With the new LP, Andrea Merolle, Lyric soprano singer Barbara Margani and Andrea Sperduti, continue their unique sonic exploration through extraterrestrial soundscapes. A pure injection of Shoegaze from outer space tinged with ceremonial Kosmische, the music of Modern Stars is loaded with stringed and electronic sounds, laid down through a multilayering approach that has more in common with Indian traditional music and Techno than with rock’n’roll. In the words of the band: "we want our records to sound like a journey and not as a collage of songs".

'Space Trip For The Masses' is inspired by the recent hype around space tourism projects and it deals with the theme of inner search for happiness, through the story of an amateur astronaut, who sets off towards the sun without returning home. The songs revolve around spiralling drones, evolving from electronic patterns, humming of sitars, noises from the immediate surroundings like the buzzing of a fridge, and guitar layers with unusual tunings. It is an inverse and deconstructional composition process, where drones become the canvas as the band discover the harmonies from within noises, until the songs take on a life of their own. Drumming, bass and vocals always come last. Modern Stars’ vocalists adopt a rather distant approach, aided by similarly obscuring production and perfectly tailored to the more psychedelically repetitions, yet overly greyscale when focusing on effective choruses.

The opening track Starlight is a dissonant dirge that accompanies the beginning of the journey that a modern Icarus decides to undertake to get to know himself. The following syncopated and acidic Monkey Blues portrays a moment in which the protagonist no longer understands whether what surrounds him is reality or the fruit of his mind. In the obsessive march of No Fuss, he proceeds towards the achievement of his goal. However, something goes wrong, and the atmosphere becomes apocalyptic with My Messiah Left Me Behind. Side B side opens the symphonic and distorted sounds of Everyday, a lullaby of hope that turns into a pressing mantra. It continues with the delicate Drowning, in which the traveller faces the fate that sees him sink without returning home. The album ends with Ninna Nanna, a psychedelic lullaby composed on a traditional children's song.

Sounds like: Teenage Filmstars, Silver Apples, Suicide, Spacemen 3, Can.

LINE UP

Andrea Merolle – Guitars, Sitar, Mandolin, Synthesizers, Vocals
Barbara Margani – Vocals
Andrea Sperduti – Drums and Percussions
Filippo Strang – Bass