Music Review // Moss & Jones – Amateur Astronomy



Music has a funny way of affecting your surroundings. When we first heard Moss & Jones it was via the digital world when they appeared on a previous edition of our monthly mixtape, but when the listener gets deeper into their work it soon becomes clear that this music belongs in another time altogether, way before the internet decided to impact our lives so much.


With the crisp harmonies and vocals reminiscent of pure folk there is a timeless quality that makes the whole album endearingly eccentric in a wonderfully British way. Of course, we’re not ones for geographical based generalities but there is nowhere else the unique sounds on Amateur Astrology could have originated. There are ukuleles, whistles, lullabies and even a bit of Latin thrown in for good measure and the whole combination works wonderfully.

The aforementioned Latin appears in the ear worm that is ‘(There’s No Such Thing As) Wandering Stars’ and it is as is a Tudor period court band have traveled forward in time and bought their magical sounds with them. The chant like intro to the song is an almost spooky moment in album full of quirky whimsy and magic. When that segues into the wonderful I See The Moon and then into the lilting lullaby that is 'Millbrook' it’s easy to find the sense of melodic humour that makes album so very endearing to the ear. (Listen out for the ice cream van…)


The rest of the album continues to emphasise the duo’s medieval like sound, especially on the addictive and eloquent ‘Ella Brown’, perhaps one of the darkest moments of the album and a very obvious first single. This is the kind of music one might hear on a Parisian street and be unable to resist stopping to listen and with those beautiful harmonies and strings as well it’s easy to understand why. 

As a whole then ‘Amateur Astronomy’ is an album that will appeal easily to those with an ear for the unique and beautiful things in life. Its timeless mix of choral harmonies, majestic medieval court style performance and British Folk influences is certainly a factor involved in the album being so endearingly fascinating to listen to. 

(S.Rashii)

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