Sometimes music simply isn’t comfortable. From time to time you have to make an effort whilst listening, and this has always seemed to be the case with improv noise duo MoHa!. Previously based on processed guitar and drums, now with added synthesizers, they have never intended for their music to be particularly comfortable. Comfortable music rarely challenges our expectations. It rarely gives the listener never-before-heard rhythms or chords and little effort is needed to understand or even perceive musical details.
In fact, One-Way Ticket To Candyland was too much of an effort for me during my first listen. I thought MoHa! had gone too far with their reckless noise this time. At least on the first three tracks… The album starts off with ‘It Burns Twice’, immediate loud drumming swiftly joined by a screaming guitar and a massive dirty synth mere seconds later. The listener is instantly blown to pieces with no time to let the wall of sound sink in. They keep the intensity at an alarmingly high rate until midway through the third track, ‘Sopp På Kugen’, where they lower the sound level for the remainder of the track allowing some time for evaluation of what has just passed through ones ears. At first I was overwhelmed by these first three tracks and dismissed them as too noisy and uninteresting. This was all about to change however.
When I reached ‘The Shitman’ I discovered a track oozing with confidence, a track containing something as strange as well thought-through improvisation and a track with an excitingly simple beat! It starts off with a mellow drone lasting about three and a half minutes, when suddenly drums and synthesizer appear in something along the lines of a rock/techno-hybrid with occasional outbreaks of noise in the background. It all comes off refreshingly dissimilar to anything MoHa! has done before. They never did quite sound like a duo, with their complex expression and massive array of sounds, but this must be one of their ’simplest’ outlets so far. The fact that this duo has performed together for more than ten years is omnipresent from here on and out, and the album ends in the quiet and lovely ‘# Outro’.
What really took me by surprise was my feeling during One-Way Ticket To Candyland’s second listen. The huge effort required to grasp the initial tracks during the first go, had been reduced to a simpler task. It wasn’t as ‘uncomfortable’ anymore. It didn’t take me by surprise and as far as hectic noise goes, it sounded almost pleasant. MoHa! successfully broadened my perception of what music is ’supposed’ to sound like, making me able to appreciate the tracks I couldn’t appreciate at first. With every release MoHa! seem to push the limits a little bit further, which they certainly did with Raus Aus Stavanger and Norwegianism, and I hope they continue their sonic journey into new uncharted areas.
You’ll probably need more than a one-way ticket to fully appreciate MoHa!’s candyland. If you commute between your comfortable music and theirs, however, you are in for a treat.
Highlights: ‘It Burns Twice’, ‘Too Smart Enough to Think’ and ‘The Shitman’
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