Moose
Sonny Of Sam

Continuing the dive into the deep seas of 90s British music, focusing mainly on the unknowns rather than the frontline stars, I want to bring to your attention this little gem, perhaps slightly faded, which is Sonny&Sam.

The band that released it in 1991 for Hut is Moose. The EP is a mix of shoegaze/pop-rock that faintly recalls Ride and Verve. Subsequently, they took their own musical path, venturing into a much more distinct chilly pop, completely setting themselves apart from other bands.
The peculiarity of Moose, however, even in this EP, is creating a sound that is quite cold yet penetrating, and a voice, that of Russell Yates, so baritonal it appears icy; sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don’t. The EP is predominantly built on guitar reverb, and Moose play a lot with the audio literally bouncing the sound from side to side almost as if mocking stereophony.

They also play with names, starting from the title and continuing in the tracklist where you find the ethereal ""Jack"", extremely fast, with a noisy carpet of guitars that continuously echoes in the sound and completely merges. ""Ballad of Adam & Eve"" recalls the early Verve, albeit a bit less hallucinatory perhaps, and ""Suzanne"" where the watery advance of the guitar is literally grated, with the urgent drumming and Yates's alienating voice, creating an almost grotesque play that might almost seem offbeat.

However, there are two songs in the EP that perhaps do justice and elevate the EP (which is a bit repetitive and flat by the end) I'm referring to "Do you remember?" and "This River Will Never Run Dry". The former (here you'll understand where starsailor got the riff for Silence is Easy) is an 8-minute instrumental, with extraordinary drumming that keeps the rhythm, and where the atmosphere becomes dreamy, distorted, excellently evoking the concept of memory, the rhythm picks up, almost turning into white noise, and then towards the end, the song reprises the initial riff slowing more and more until fading completely. The latter is a slow and rather dark song, very sad, with the drumming slightly jazzy, played divinely. However, this song isn't the classic Moose song. In fact, it somewhat detaches from the atmosphere of the EP, avoiding oppressive and compact sound carpets, leaning towards a more melodic music, starting with the delay guitar and almost country acoustic guitar segments, and the voice that is more inclined towards melody than icy baritone. The accompanying video is a must-see. Very impressive to be honest, but it’s worth it. I'll say no more, you just have to watch it; I’m curious about your comments. (you can watch it by clicking here).

The Moose, nobody will remember them, and even today few people know of their existence, I’m aware of that, yet they’ve influenced some clever ones who later on started a band, their echoes aren’t so weak and are perceptible. If you ever manage to find this EP, some other album of theirs or a song, give it a try and you won’t regret it. It's incredibly hard to find them online and in stores too. You can only rely on various online stores.

If you want to listen to something and know more, I leave a few links since they don't have an official site:

The fan-created site dedicated to the band (click here)
Their myspace page (click here)