Altered Zones

By Luke Carrell

MP3: The Soft Moon: "Tiny Spiders"

MP3: The Soft Moon: "Breathe The Fire"

The music of The Soft Moon's Luis Vasquez is an intensely personal affair, brimming with tightly clenched and half-understood memories. In his at-home studio, Vasquez funnels potentially overwhelming streams of post-punk reverb, rapid-fire percussion, and gauzy vocals into heavily textured dark psych burners, softening his influences while deepening the intrigue. Needless to say, we've had his debut, self-titled EP on Brooklyn's Captured Tracks on repeat over in these Altered Zones of late-- and with good reason. Vasquez, who turns out to be a really nice and sunny guy, took some time to chat with us by phone from his adopted home of San Fransisco about his label, his sound, and what’s ahead.

AZ: How did you link up with Captured Tracks?

Luis: It kind of caught me off guard. When I first started writing Soft Moon stuff, it was really personal for me. I was playing in the Lumerians at the time-- I mean, I still am-- and kind of needed to express myself by myself, outside of working with a group. So I wrote a couple songs and posted them on MySpace-- just for whatever, just for fun. That’s when Mike Sniper of Captured Tracks contacted me. It was pretty, well... random. I wasn’t even aware of the label and he asked me if I wanted to do a release, so I looked them up. I’d just started getting into Blank Dogs, so I was kind of familiar with his band and thought it’d be kind of a cool match. I really enjoyed the music and it was similar to The Soft Moon in ways, though it wasn’t anything intentional. When we released my first single, "Breath the Fire," and it got a really good response. From there we signed a contract to do two albums, so I started writing.

AZ: The word “dark” comes up a lot when people describe your music. Many also detect a pronounced '80s influence.

Luis: When I approach a song, it’s almost like I’m facing an enemy in some strange way, so there’s an energy that comes from that. I’m still figuring it out, really. It might have come out dark because I recorded the entire album in my apartment by myself, and because the music is really honest. It makes sense that the music from when I was growing up would sneak its way into my sound. This project was me not trying to make something totally new. A lot of musicians want to make something super unique and completely different and brand new. I’d been doing that almost my whole life and I just decided not to, to create something nostalgic.

AZ: San Francisco has a long history as a hub of psychedelic music, dark psych included. Would you say that your location has impacted your sound?

Luis: I think that since I’ve moved to San Francisco-- I’ve been here a little more that four years-- psych has definitely made its way into my music. I actually didn’t really start getting into psych music before I came to the Bay Area. Once I got into psych, I got super into world psych, so I think I brought that into my music as well.

AZ: How is that all translating into the live show? You’ve got some a lot of shows coming up: Cali dates, SXSW, The Austin Psych Fest, and European and North American tours after that.

Luis: Live, I’ve got two guys who are just super into the project. There’s [bass player] Justin Anastasi, who came to my very first show. Later, he introduced me to Damon Way, who has this awesome synthesizer collection. We had this similar childhood: he skated and was into punk rock, so he’s in the band now when we play live. It’s even more energetic [than it is on record]; it’s pretty raw, and has kind of a punk approach. When we went into our first rehearsals, the whole point was to translate the album as closely as possible; now, we’re just running with the raw rock thing, being spontaneous.

AZ: Has playing your music in a live context changed how you’re thinking about the next album?

Luis: I’ve given some thought to that. I don’t want to lose the essence of the first album, so I’m going to approach it tactfully. Probably 90% of the album will still be just me, but I want to incorporate Damon and Justin. I’m really playing it by ear. Who knows what will happen?

The Soft Moon is out now on Captured Tracks. Soft Moon will be performing at SXSW and Austin Psych Fest, which also features Lumerians