100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #81 Moin – Cubby

Released: 2024

Sometimes you have to listen hard to understand. Hard listening isn’t really a skill of course, more the willingness to let yourself be open enough to be surprised, make connections, or end up in a completely different room to the one you first entered. Any limitations are mostly made up from bits of your thought process; getting round your own mind however isn’t something they can really each you in school.

This odd preamble is because two thirds of Moin in Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews first came to prominence as Raime, whose darkly ambient first album Quarter Turns Over a Living Line was notably against a grain. They formed Moin after meeting percussionst Valentina Magaletti at a party, but trio’s sporadic output has owed much more of a debt to the abstract post rock of bands like Slint and hardcore freestylists Black Flag.

Their third album You Never End saw them shift from using samples to live vocals, in an attempt Andrews says to recapture some of the essence of dance music, and more specifically jungle. You’ll have to listen hard in places to get that, but the discombobulated voices used on Cubby have an old skool, primitive texture to them. With Magaletti’s sublime, lithe beats high in an otherwise sludgy mix, it’s a track with a satisfyingly high bar to access.