Yr Lovely Dead Moon Yr Lovely Dead Moon

The first full-length album on Hot Concept arrives courtesy of Yr Lovely Dead Moon, the ongoing project of writer, singer and producer Rachel Margetts, Margetts’ fluid, self-taught style effortlessly spans broken strands of post-punk, musique concrete and prickling electro, while her own heady poetry is reminiscent of the explosive vocal energy of Anne Clark or the gender hypnotics of Jenny Hval. Having shared a stage with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Charles Haywood and Giant Swan, Yr Lovely Dead Moon toured across a number of DIY scenes across Europe, spanning from Margetts’ hometown in the North-East of England, to Armenia and her current abode, Berlin. “Work, sex, childbirth… Repetition.” This phrase soars specifically somewhere amidst ‘Kali’, the bold and remarkable introduction to the sonic landscape of Yr Lovely Dead Moon, baptising listeners not only in Margetts’ sprawling songwriting but offering subtle clues to the questions driving the dark but optimistic heart of this album. Mystical figures emerge from murky watery depths to seek transcendence, resisting the temptation to retreat back from the conflict. From an ever-humane perspective, the desire for change sits alongside the often bittersweet acceptance of one’s limits. Sprawling guitars transition into heady electronic psychedelia, earning triumphant bliss. Lead-single ‘Physical Corpses’ documents Margetts exploring a dream-like state at the darkest end of the club, finding only herself for company as she wanders between deconstructed columns of noise. Accompanied by a video from director Joseph Campbell (who also co-produced the album), ‘Le Tempestaire’ returns to the waves that lap against the record’s fever dream, confronting difficulties and contradictions beneath the surface. ‘Out of Body’ meanwhile adopts a disembodied consciousness to recall the very anti-escapism of a life briefly embodied at the sleazier end of Berlin’s second-hand record trade, delivering giddy instrumentation and acerbic killer blows. On the contrary, the more empowering passage of ‘Floating World’ finds Margetts’ stream-of-consciousness emerging between a fractured fantasy, distorting her own presence in order to confess, “I’ve been living badly… And you, and me”. Finally, in the monologue that drives ‘The Object’, our narrator wades into yet more vulnerable and provocative territory still, gamely confronting both her envy of the oppressor and the oppressor themselves. “Touche, you sadistic fucker”, she quips, as the album winds cooly towards it’s razor-sharp and rhythmic conclusion. Observing the abstract patterns that underpin our individual and collective journeys, our power to transcend as well as the ability to corrupt, Margetts snatches moments of genuine pleasure. Dense and melodic, vulnerable and affirmative, the bracing experience of Yr Lovely Dead Moon introduces a vital and hugely original voice in British electronic and alternative music. Beginning in 2019, Hot Concept is a record label and series of Berlin parties, led by DJ and writer John Loveless. Focused on charismatic and experimental electronic and alternative music, the imprint has so far released material from Bleaching Agent, Discovery Zone, Beigean and Pokies.