Moro's Pastoral EP Out Now - Homegrown
With two critically applauded albums under their belt, Moro are now back with Homegrown: Musica per Orto e Mezzo, a new 7-inch vinyl single and digital EP. After the love-lorn melodies of My Favourite Season and the cheerfully thoughtful indie pop-ro
Online, November 5, 2013 (Newswire.com) - With two critically applauded albums under their belt, Moro are now back with Homegrown: Musica per Orto e Mezzo, a new 7-inch vinyl single and digital EP. After the love-lorn melodies of My Favourite Season and the cheerfully thoughtful indie pop-rock of Silent Revolution, this latest effort by the Italy-based songwriter-cum-band marks a turn towards pastoral folk - although the songs on offer here are no consoling country fare.
Originally composed as a soundtrack for Italian TV programme Orto e mezzo, Homegrown is also a foretaste of Moro's forthcoming third album, Home Pastorals, to be released at the start of 2014. And while three-fourths of the personnel here remain the same as on the previous album (Massimiliano Morini, Lorenzo Gasperoni and Francobeat Naddei playing all instruments by turns), Moro's songs are now published by Gammapop, a venerable Italian indie outfit that specializes in Anglophone music (Cut, Julie's Haircut).
The two songs of the single justify the hype around Moro's previous releases and add further dimensions to Morini's songwriting: in City Pastoral - a joyous if somewhat disquieting acoustic song blending Fleet Foxes with Wilco - urban foxes and displaced shepherds haunt city streets at night in search of some forgotten bucolic vestiges, "churn[ing] the pale milk of our sleep" with their uncouth movements. The more sedate Spike Milligan#2 turns Morini's fixation with the great depressive comic writer into an introspective meditation on death, depression, self-absorption, and the best way of coming to terms with the world ("Sometimes I'm dead like Spike Milligan / Only my breath is still there / Working each morning's Caesarean / Blowing dull words through the air").
The EP version of Homegrown also contains acoustic versions of older songs (Sparks, Now, Lie to Me, I Know My Life Is No Longer My Own, all in the Orto e Mezzo soundtrack). These are given a new acoustic sheen that - without the sharp edge of Morini's abrasive lyrics - can trick the listener into thinking that this is, indeed, homely, reassuring indie folk.
To buy the 7-inch vinyl single, visit gammapop.it. The Homegrown EP is available for download on all major digital stores. To order a review copy, and for all additional information, contact info@gammapop.it.