Right around the time they were making their slowcore classic
Stratosphere, the trio of musicians who made up the band
Duster were also recording under the name
Valium Aggelein. Their approach was similar on the surface; both bands stretched out indie rock tropes until they were elongated explorations into simplicity, repetition, and space that carried a surprising amount of emotional weight. Here, though, the trio weren't as interested in writing songs as they were in making sounds, largely improvising the music and letting the voices appear sparingly if at all. They made a cassette titled
Dweller on the Threshold in 1997 that was made up of sonic fragments and staticky instrumentals, then in 1998 recorded
Hier Kommt Der Schwartze Mond. The record is made up of long, quietly unmoored excursions into the artful side of indie rock with heavy influence from German bands and the same groups that
Duster derived so much from, like
Codeine. Unlike in
Duster, where everything felt like it was plotted out to the merest creak of an amp, there is a looseness on the album that allows the sound to flow directly out of the speakers and into the brain and heart uninhibited by anything as bothersome as words or structure. If more people had heard it, the title track might have been one of the touchstones of the late space rock era. It's a beautiful song that balances stillness with echoing guitar strums and twinkling keyboard flourishes while spending seven-and-a-half minutes breaking the listener's heart and slowly putting it back together. It's a masterpiece that is nearly equaled by the rest of the record, and when paired with
Stratosphere serves to make 1998 some kind of high-water mark for music. In 2020,
the Numero Group, hot on the heels of its much-needed
Duster box set retrospective
Capsule Losing Contact, finally reissued both the album and cassette under the name of
Black Moon. If that pairing wasn't welcome enough, the label dug up a few super-rare tracks to add, one of which -- "Bird Wings" -- would have been the closest thing the group would have had to a hit single if they had added some snappy words to the hooky melody. This is indie rock at its very best and
Numero deserves all the praise in the world for finally making the music of
Valium Aggelein (and
Duster) widely available for the first time. ~ Tim Sendra
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