On Triggered By Sunsets, the exquisite third LP from Bay Area expat Young Moon, small affirmations hit like weather events. Songs burn like generational amulets. Mercy opens the window to let a little air in.
At the end of 2019, following the suicide of a treasured friend, Young Moon’s Trevor Montgomery packed up his life in San Francisco and shifted halfway around the globe to Nelson, New Zealand. He arrived in his new home – a seaside town, known for its galleries and good weather – just as the global pandemic took hold. Without a close community to moor himself to, Montgomery dove into work; he began renting an empty masonic temple, built a recording studio inside, and tore into a fresh batch of songs.
Perhaps accordingly, Triggered By Sunsets plays like the optimistic closing of a rough chapter. Opener, “Dance Yer Sadness”, sets dayglow synths and buoyant instrumentation against Montgomery’s tender and wary baritone. “Paint your world late at night, any colour you want is right” he offers over gold-hued drum machine whoomph. It’s a song about dark spells in the hinterland and the art of falling back in love with life, and, while much of the material here deals with interpersonal relationships (saved/severed, take your pick) Triggered By Sunsets feels primarily like an ode to the wonders of the natural world. Across these eleven tracks Montgomery’s love of bargain bin new-age music, of breath work and big sky thinking, collide with his dogeared pop sensibilities. “Deep Ecology” shares a sonic footprint with The Cure’s 1989 mood- suite Disintegration, but where that album found seduction in the dank underworld, “Deep Ecology” shines a light out of the abyss. The album’s two instrumental cuts, “The Practice Of Repeating” and “Supposed Dreamer”, gleam like pale-blue glaciers on a cold, clear night; their cosmic themes displaying perfectly the illuminating production throughout. But Montgomery’s true power has always been in his radical vulnerability, and once again he’s turned his own heart inside- out, luminescent as it is. – Matt Hellriegel
How can a sound this bright and green be so ancient at the
same time? Sun coming up over New Zealand, the foam and
churn of the Indian Ocean become waves that hit the far
California coast. Beginning of the world in volcanic brine,
organic patterning out, to old San Francisco marine layer rolling
fog over a millenia of half-hidden sunsets. The slowest parts of
the fastest nights come back to you like a dream. "When love is
all you got / you're living on the precipice." You'll live in these
songs, hear them encounter their own force and establish a
world: one that is somewhere very close to our own, but which
is more tender, haunted, and sacred. This moon phase visible
at all points of the globe, in pale morning light and deep
nighttime darkness. A terrestrial resonance with empyrean
romance, picked up on sublunary tape. – Jason Morris
credits
released June 30, 2023
Music and lyrics by Trevor Montgomery
Recorded/mixed/performed by Trevor Montgomery
with additional bass/drums/organs/vox by Jeff Moller
Recorded in San Francisco, California (USA) at Raccoonland
and in Nelson, Aotearoa (NZ) at the Temple
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart
Cover art by Rachel Anne Duffy
Layout by Jon Samuels
Thank you Owen, Rachel and Jeff
Young Moon contact: loveloverson@gmail.com
supported by 12 fans who also own “Triggered by Sunsets”
as someone with a sort of shitty relationship with christmas, listening to advance base (particularly this album) as well as Owen's christmas specials have been my own little way of celebrating the season <3 tulpa toad
supported by 10 fans who also own “Triggered by Sunsets”
I just started listening to this album today and am IN LOVE! Every track is perfect.
I'm slightly sad I didn't start listening to boygenius until but happy to be a fan of their music <3 lissie_a
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