Band: MoYan
Country of Origin: France

Hypnotic Fall is MoYan’s most-recent release and also serves as an apt description for what this Strasbourg quartet will impart on your eardrums with their fuzzed-out psychedelic post-rock. If you regularly follow our “Five Questions With…” series, you’ll know have a penchant for entrancing music that causes me to loose all sense of the passing of time. MoYan checks that box. They recently wrapped up a November tour and are working on some new material. Be sure to give Hypnotic Fall a listen as you read through their answers.

Five Questions

1. What is your desert island disc (the one album you couldn’t live without)

Jérémie (guitar): Swans – The Glowing Man

Thomas (bass): Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun. It turns 20 this year I think and it always sounds great. And really relaxing.

Michael (guitar/keyboard): The Paper Chase – God bless your black heart

Guillaume (drum): Burial – Untrue

2. How did the band members meet (or, for a solo musician, how did you get started)?

Thanks to a dating website. It was first created when Gaëtan met Jérémie (Guitars) and soon after Thomas came to play the bass guitar. Then we struggle to find a drummer. We tried maybe 15 drummers before finding Guillaume accidentally (he was passing by our practice room and heard some noise). And at the same time, Michaël joined the project with his guitar and synth. We stayed like this for a few years and released our first EP. Soon after, Gaëtan left the band to move to the south of France (he is now involved in First Came the Shadow). Since then we are four and we enjoy it like this.

3. What is the underground music scene like in your home country?

The underground music scene is quite diverse and active, musically speaking. But in France, laws concerning noise are getting more and more restrictive so there are less and less venues and too much bands. So its quite a struggle for an alternative bands to book a tour. There are small associations, indie labels of passionate people in almost every city. They all try to organize events and support these bands. We try to do that with through our label and association (Itawak Records), but it is not always possible in a small city to have enough audience to welcome all the touring bands as well as we want.

4. What are some of your biggest influences outside of music?

Experimental cinema (Graphic films, Stan Brakhage, Sogo Ishii …) has always played a big part into the MoYan’s aesthetic. When possible, we use this type of video to create an atmosphere during our shows.

M: And beers.

5. Tell us about your favorite show you ever played.

J: My favorite show was probably the one we did at the venue “Q” in Marburg, Germany. This was a big café, with a beautiful stage right in front of ancient walls. Lot of people, great sound, a really weird and fun techno after party inside a labyrinth of caves. And a sleeping in a dance school. Everything was unexpected and quite perfect!

T: Yes all this tour in Germany around the release party of the LP was quite fun.