We are happy to announce the upcoming release of the second MOAT album, POISON STREAM, coming via Schoolkids Records in February 2021. This collaboration between Marty Willson-Piper and Niko Röhlcke sees these two prolific artists working together again for the follow up to their self-titled first album, released in 2013.
Niko is a multi-instrumentalist and has composed for theatre, film and TV as well as being guitarist, keyboard player and co-writer in Weeping Willows, one of Sweden’s most popular bands.
Marty is best known for his long tenure of over three decades with Australian psychedelic surfers the church, ten years with English hippie goths All About Eve and an ongoing long-term project with Dare Mason called Noctorum, that has resulted in four albums. Dare contributes as co producer and engineer on POISON STREAM. Marty is also known for various collaborations, including an album with Australian seminal punk rockers The Saints and an instrumental album, One Day, with English band Atlantaeum Flood. More recently he has been recording with Liverpool’s The Wild Swans and Berlin’s ex-Tangerine Dream member and son of Edgar, Jerome Froese, two albums that are works in progress. There are also releases coming from Marty’s Sessioneer Project, one completed album, Life This Way by Space Summit, which is a collaboration with Minneapolis resident Jed Bonniwell, will appear in the spring of next year. Jed and Marty wrote the songs together remotely with Marty playing the guitars and bass and Jed writing the words and singing. Another two projects are in progress, one by Istanbul resident Ahad Afridi with Marty playing the guitars and bass and co-produced by Marty and Dare, and yet another EP from Sydney's Tony Rumble and his Arctic Lake project where Marty and Dare contribute vocals with Marty adding guitars. A production with Texas singer-songwriter Salim Nourallah where Marty also guests on guitar will appear next year. In Sweden, Marty is also a member of progressive rock band Anekdoten and this is where MOAT was born. Add to this Marty’s ongoing touring duo with his German wife and violinist Olivia.
Musically the album covers an eclectic range but it maintains an atmosphere that mixes the weirdness of an eccentric English village with the long dark nights of moody Scandinavia. Marty as lyricist and singer co-writes the songs with Niko, some of the original ideas coming from Niko’s atmospheric soundtracks, occasionally a track is created whilst working in the studio and other music is written together in a cosy room, usually with guitars.
Two songs, the slow pulsating GONE BY NOON and the more up-tempo ACID RAIN, have already been unleashed to the public ear with a positive response. We will release one more track before the album proper. If you enjoy thoughtful Anglo-Scandinavian-bent moody folk-pop with lyrical twists and turns, the occasional experiment and a timeless modern soundtrack to the past, then this may be the album for you.
