Mosses

On their latest under the Mosses moniker Ryan Jewell and Danette Bordenkircher run the psychedelic gamut, creating a twilight quilt of influences that all seem strung together with a cosmic thread. The duo wanders the path from dark and ragged psych-folk to kosmiche winds that bump the bounds of the German Progressive barrier. Threaded with a subtle ripple of programming that recalls Ben Chasny’s latest in places, they prove that no niche of the psychedelic spectrum is out of bounds to bring into the mix. Their songs sparkle with pop in places — laden with catchy corners that beg for repeated listens. Elsewhere the notion of hooks melt away altogether, letting the moment take them down corridors as twisted and tangled as the can find. The band’s no stranger to an extended outro, but that urge to explore only cements their status.

Though they remain a pair at their core, this psych duo brings a few more friends into the fold of their Karass, with Meg Baird (Espers Heron Oblivion), Arjun Kulharya (Aquarian Blood), and Robbie Lee (Kahoots, Che Chen) among others lending some extended instrumentation to the mix. While things can get downright dark (“Ahh Auspicious”) there are moments of bright-footed pop (“MSR,” “T.V. Sun”) that prove that Ryan and Danette can craft a damn catchy tune, they just don’t seem beholden to the idea. There’s even a moment when the band pits the instincts latter day Jay Reatard against a strain of ‘60s organ pop (think Jay covering The Standells in the bones of “Time In Your Mind”) and it works. The untethered nature of the album gives the band license but they never abuse it. Instead Mosses have created their best yet — a psych-pop dark horse that slips into your brain under cover of night and makes its home there. Each listen just opens this wider and wider.

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