The Moles release debut album 'The Future Sounds of Ashton'

The Moles release their debut album 'The Future Sounds of Ashton' on See Monkey Do Monkey Recordings 1st November, 2010

These are dark days that we're living in. Discontent with the government, economy and religion fill the papers. Bigots are taking to the streets. Commercial pop music hits an all time low…meanwhile in a brightly painted bunker in Bristol, Brin Davies, Billy Fuller, Dan Chandler and Steve Dew are making music that goes way below the underground.

The West Country, as you may know, has its own micro-climate (something to do with the estuary, I believe) and thankfully a certain part of creative society in our seventh largest city offer a different take on the music industry, owing nothing to Simon Cowell and the dumbing-down of pop, where pretty faces and out of key voices equal success.

In fact, a record made in 1968, when Simon Dupree & The Big Sound cut 'We Are The Moles' for Parlophone under the moniker The Moles, may mean more to these loons than a the idea of daytime Radio 1 playlist record.

The Moles (both groups) mask the darkness with wry humour and a throbbing bass sound, fuzz guitar and a hallucinogenic sense of apocalypse. Lead singer Brin Davies, preaches his manifesto to enlighten the minds numbed by the mundane ease of 21st century life.

Psychedelia has always been something of an opposing force in popular music. The Beatles turned to The Book Of The Dead. The Stones loved us. The Damned moved on from punk and recorded The Black Album. When things get predictable psychedelia returns to tip over the apple cart. Brin, Billy and the gang uncannily emerge from their burrow as everything in music is getting just a tad boring and predictable.

'The Future Sounds Of Ashton' may shock those who expect a dot-to-do recreation of the '60s though. 'The Combined Force Of An Atom' is as feral, urgent and angered as Blur's 'Chinese Bombs'. And like Damon Albarn, lyricist Mole Brin Davies fully understands the correlation between the disconnected playfulness of Syd Barret and the art school nihilism of the early punk movement. Indeed, there is something very Soft Boys about The Moles' musical landscape; fractured imagery, nightmarish word play, distinct vocals and an evident debt to 1967 without plagiarising the source material.

Across 15 songs the group forge a distinct sound, relying on simple production (lovingly re-created in Fuller's attic) rather than the everything-but-the-kitchen sink effect laden approach of the Sgt Pepper school of recording.

Billy Fuller (also a member of BEAK>, Fuzz Against Junk and Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation… yes, ROBERT PLANT) supplies many a memorable bass line whilst Davies' characteristic English vocals may well leave the same lasting impression as Ray Davies, Andy Partridge, Robyn Hitchcock, Howard Devoto and Jarvis Cocker… even when having explosive US garage-punk/psych edges, the forlorn, upbeat, funny and sad music of The Moles is as English as fish 'n' chips at the end of Weston-Super Mare pier!

For fans of: The Flaming Lips, Blur, The Eggman, The Walrus, Lucifer Sam, Kevin Ayers, The Soft Boys, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Paris 1968, The Soft Machine, Billy Childish, eccentricity, unpredictability.

THE MOLES LAUNCH 'THE FUTURE SOUNDS OF ASHTON' AT:
Rise Records, Bristol.
4pm, 6th November 2010

The Moles MySpace

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