We live in times which can feel heavy, almost oppressive. We know, instantaneously and in an ongoing sense, more about what is going on around us, both near at hand and all around the world than any group of people in history ever has. People, us, have always been, throughout history, just as we are now. It’s just that these days we know more about how each of us are, what we do, what we think and why we do and think those things. There’s so much information and data around to process and assimilate, a lot of it pointing to things either getting worse, or the future at the very least being far from certain. It’s a lot. Beauty can seem a distant dream.
There is plenty of good, plenty of hope, plenty of joy, of course. That stuff doesn’t get so much publicity, or to the forefront of minds, or to the point of shaping hearts and lives so often though. As I get older I find it hard to fathom why. Where beauty is found, we can enjoy it, share it and encourage others to find it too. That seems like a good way to live.
Music has so often spoken of something divine to me. Plenty of it that has has by no means had a faith-based or Christian undertone. I say this as someone who themselves is a Christian. Where there is tangible, lasting beauty I find God is never far away. For me at least music draws me to God in a way that most other things do not. I know it doesn’t work that way for everyone. There’s something deeply inspiring about hearing quality music which at one point didn’t exist and then through the spark of creativity of individuals or groups came into being. That’s before skills of arranging, production, engineering, mixing and mastering are added to the pot. Music connects us to something beyond ourselves, for the moments we listen and in the memories we hold having done so. I’m so thankful for it. For many years I wrote reviews for various magazines and websites, as well as this one. As I did a lot of it was to seek to encourage people who had worked incredibly hard and delivered something beautiful in the hope that more would hear. Music reviews can often seem little more than a marketing exercise which serves artist, record label/management company. There is scope to be naive enough to think that writing about a great record or a developing artist is a good thing to do in and of itself in the hope that even one set of ears and one heart are stirred to new love and joy because of hearing a set of songs. I am that naive.
With that in mind, I want to introduce you to Off to the Luna. In late 2023 an email popped into my inbox out of the blue from Matis, Santiago and Simon who make up the band. They were releasing the second single from the project, Suspiro Del Pajero. Would I listen? Their PR write-up noted that they purveyed a cinematic, piano-driven stream of jazz. This is right up my street so I pressed play, not knowing what to quite expect.
When you do, as I hope you will, you’ll encounter an enigmatic, gradually unfurling whirl of beauty as the synergy between the neo-classical piano, keening washes of strings and percussion which seems like a distant ship coming into shore radiate a perfect symmetry. It builds but never explodes, reaching a perfect point of crescendo before falling away at the last. I was hooked on first listen.
The previous single, which makes up the EP’s opening track, is To Explore Or To Lose the Way Although coming to it later, I was again bowled over. Here, the piano is stronger, more dynamic and the song builds from a purposeful start by way of a ricocheting drum part into a wholly satisfying climax as, again, the trio are in perfect synergy with one another. Each note, whether in the pared-down sections or in the beautifully bold climax is perfectly placed. The mix is stunning. It is hard to describe how beautiful this song is.
I’m hooked, there’s beauty teeming throughout these two songs. As I said earlier, for me this is where music points me to a deeper well, something beyond the here and now, the everyday. It might seem grandiose. It probably even seems silly to some who might read this. But that’s the beauty of life and the subjective elements of how music can impact us, the aspects we can view it from, the perspectives different of us can take on the same combination of notes, chords and melodies. When we hear things we can be instantly transported to the first time we did, or the time we last heard something like it, the places we were in, the people who were with us, even the sights and smells of that time. I think we can also similarly look forwards in the dark days of autumn and winter when I first heard these songs to the possibility of a better future. You might disagree, but it does me some good!
After these first two songs I was sold on Off to the Luna. The delight was that the other three tracks on this, their debut EP, add still further to the delights on offer.
Night Fable begins gently before caterwauling through deliciously cinematic sections which are akin to the best Neil Cowley Trio or others like Portico Quartet or Gogo Penguin bring to the table. At just under 8 minutes it is somewhat of an epic. Even this is surpassed by the following Boreal which for the first time includes vocal melodies, which augment piano, picked strings and washes of cymbals, with another drum part which is akin to a pushy drum n bass drive. As with much here, the song builds and builds and builds to a wholly satisfying height. Closing track Shiv’ah feels darker and bolder in tone. Synths and processed drums building to the resolution of a suitably funereal (in the right sense) melodic piano driven conclusion. Melodically and structurally this song moves around much more, never staying in one progression for long, rising and falling in volume, and with real beauty in the bass parts. The song and the EP conclude in an echo-laden and thought-provoking way which in spite of what one assumes the song is about, leaves the listener hoping that far from the end, this is only the beginning for Off to the Luna
I make no claim to be a real writer. I write about music (and other things) at largely random moments when the mood takes me and mostly because something I’ve heard or seen has mattered enough to me that I want other people to know about it. This is what happened here. This EP moved me to the extent that, somewhat rarely for me in these days of a never-ending deluge new music to hear and where music has seemingly succumbed to being something we consume and dispose of rather than returning to again and again over a period of years, I keep returning to it and finding new beauty, new possibility. Having promised the band I would write about it I am sorry it took so long, but I hope that as you hear the record you will have a similar experience to me.
