Additional Moog - Endless Air [2009]

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Additional Moog, like many British bands before them, took a classic American music format — in this case the alt-country of Gram Parsons, The Band, Wilco, and others — and filtered it through their English sensibility to present us with a version of America that exists purely in their imagination, yet which, in many ways, is closer to pure Americana than any U.S. band can hope to aspire to.

Songs like “Avalanche Days” and “Alaska” portray a mythical America that would have felt right at home on any Gram Parsons album, while “Trout Thing” and “Silver Diver” betray, in a good way, their British lineage, bringing to mind more T. Rex than the Flying Burrito Brothers. All in all, this is a collection of songs worth taking note of, musically and metaphorically.

Additional Moog originally started out as a one-man studio project influenced by the music of Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young and the Silver Jews and the song titles of Captain Beefheart. James Williams played and recorded everything himself until finally finding three other musicians into both ABBA and ELO.

The original Admoog demos proved quite popular, notching up more than 30,000 downloads on MP3.com, the grandaddy of digital download websites. Along the way, former Pavement auxilliarist Bob Nastanovich signed up as a collaborator, and the band was on its way.

Additional Moog have recently signed with Lost Cat Records, who have released “Lost Engines” and the single “Holy Jukebox” as Additional Moog's first official stateside releases.