Luis Vasquez works alone, and it shows. Excluding live performances, the San Francisco musician sets and triggers every sound associated with the Soft Moon, drawing from the coldest, most metallic zeniths of post-punk and industrial rock. He builds isolation out of isolation, almost to the point that he's entirely removed as a presence; when he sings, he's less a personality than an instrument in the mix, hissing and howling like busted pipes in an abandoned factory. The work collected on the Soft Moon's self-titled LP from last year, as well as this year's follow-up EP, Total Decay, are singular and self-contained, like nightmares. A typical piece starts suddenly and without warning, and ends with equal subtlety, like someone flipping off a light switch (or, given the music's dark antagonism, turning it on). Even though there are other acts in the Bay Area that enjoy their share of ear-bleeding noise (Weekend, Thee Oh Sees if you catch them at the right moment), don't bother trying to place Vasquez amidst the area's growing circle of visible indie musicians. He's working in a class of his own.
Notice that I haven't used the word "songs" to describe the result of Vasquez's creative process. That's because the Soft Moon aren't really about "songs," per se; they're about moods, how they're conveyed, and the specific images they conjure. On The Soft Moon, the titles ascribed to the music were all the lyrics one needed (and, more often than not, was given), and that practice continues on Total Decay. Besides sounding like Joy Division and bearing the name of what sounds like a potential Joy Division song title, the most notable element of "Repetition" is its-- you guessed it-- repeating bassline, sinisterly gyrating in place while whimpered buzzing and oscillating machines rise and fall around it. The title track's zombie-eyed buzzsaws sound like the aural equivalent of having your skin slowly ripped off, while "Visions" takes a feral drum circle and throws space-disco drum machines into the mix, a combo queasy enough to make even the steeliest soothsayer run from the opium den, hopelessly choking back vomit.
Needless to say, this isn't the type of immediate, accessible stuff that casual observers might expect from Captured Tracks, a label that stakes its chips as much on M.O.R. indie-pop like Beach Fossils as on chilly synths and brutal coldwave (although they've been focusing a lot more on the latter in the last 12 months). When Vasquez decides to create something like an actual song, though, the results are undeniable. "When It's Over", a highlight from The Soft Moon, smoldered with sexual confusion and the allure of 4AD's shoegaze glory days; here, it's the title track that burns brightest, a mass-murderer of an anti-anthem that features Vasquez front and (kind of) center, eliciting a high-pitched whine delivered with terrifying slowness amidst the track's hurtling, noisebombing destruction. There's an urge to compare "Total Decay" to Nine Inch Nails, but there's no angst or frustrated feelings to be found here-- just emptiness, and whatever baggage you bring along with you.
If Total Decay's composition amounted to the spoils of its title track repeated four times over, it'd simply be too much, which highlights Vasquez's ability to conjure different sounds and styles track-by-track. However, that fact also points out how the Soft Moon's brand of cold, nocturnal malevolence works best in small smatterings. At first, I found myself underwhelmed by Total Decay, because I wanted more than what amounts to 14 minutes of new material following the promise of The Soft Moon; over time, though, I came to realize that the EP's controlled-dosage brevity is exactly what makes it rise above its predecessor. It's short and intense, and accordingly it hits hard and leaves enough of a lasting bruise on you that you can't help but touch it, just to feel the pain again.
