Minor Key Music 78: Solid Space – Destination Moon

I always have to stop myself when I say I like “all kinds of music”.  Because, honestly, that just isn’t true, there is really only one kind of music I like.  No, not [just] Black Metal, I’m talking about music in a minor key.  Sure, I’m a happy guy, but there is something about sad, sad songs that just does it for me unlike anything that contains a dreaded major third.

This month on Minor Key Monday I talk about a raw, kvlt, underground, necro…synth pop band:

Elitist underground music aficionados who find themselves unable to listen any album more than once for fear of missing out on some undiscovered gem resting just beyond the next YouTube autoplay…AKA, “me”…live for discovering bands like Solid Space.  Whether or not it is justified to call people like myself “hipsters,” and whether or not it is justified to call Solid Space an “undiscovered gem” considering the 2017 vinyl reissue was (and is) widely available, one thing I think that we can all agree on is that “Destination Moon” is a brilliant bit of melancholicly over-the-top minimalist synth-pop.

This song really does play exactly like all that shitty underground black metal I love:

• Melody limited to four notes
• Barely programmed drum machine
• Acoustic guitars where you can hear the strings more than the actual notes (a personal favorite)
• Minimal song structuring
• Minimal production values.

Hell, even the cover could be a black metal demo:

And, like the reprehensibly recorded metal I love, there is something about this motley collection of garage-level production elements that just makes “Destination Moon” work.  It helps that Solid Space use their four (fine, six) notes to maximum effect in order to create a forlorn dirge that almost makes “Venus in Furs” sound upbeat.

Solid Space only had one release, Space Museum (from which today’s track is taken) before returning to the unknown depths of obscurity from which they came. As an album, it has other great songs, but is also fairly disjointed (more an assortment of random recordings than any kind of coherent work).  Still, it is discoveries like “Destination Moon” that keep me continually searching for new music rather than relistening to stuff that is ACTUALLY good—a descriptor that, I suppose, might not fit “Destination Moon.” 

Depending on who you ask…