Tuxedomoon - Half Mute

by Paul Waller

published: 16 / 6 / 2016

Paul Waller examines San Franciscan no wave art rock act Tuxedomoon's 1980 underground classic album, 'Half Moon', which has just been reissued with a superfluous remix disc

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I would imagine that the bonus disc to this is the main selling point of this good looking re-released package because all Tuxedomoon fans would surely own ‘Half-Moon’ already as they wouldn’t be fans otherwise… Yet the second disc adds very little to the table and already sounds dare I say it… dated already. As with most cover albums or tribute packages, it’s doubtful that the listener would come back to the cuts on a regular basis. It’s a curiosity at best but especially when put up against such a stellar piece of work as the original 1980 masterpiece. My personal journey with this San Franciscan no wave art rock band is a criminally short one. Back in the early 00s I picked up their first two albums from a boot fair for pocket change, gave them a cursory listen and after finding the sounds within lifeless and almost amateur in their approach I sold them on eBay. Cut to a year ago and a colleague of mine had put ‘Volo Vivace’ from this very album onto a burned CD for me (Yeah, some people still do that), and I totally fell in love with it. In fewer than three minutes this oddly melancholic yet pacey instrumental piece had lit a fire in me to go back and readdress the potential error I had made. Today I finally have this forgotten underground classic in my hands once again, and, to be honest, I have no idea what I could have been thinking when I sold on those old vinyl originals. Tracks like ’59 to 1’ and ‘7 Years’ are art rock classics, a fact relayed to me by my CD burning pal and I have to say that he may have a point. What I initially thought was an amateur production job was just the band's clever and inventive use of space. Even when the mental jazz saxophone splashes all over ’59 to 1’ there is still a ton of room for the song to breathe. Tuxedomoon never clutter a song, even at their most mental. The end result leaves us with a record that sounds incredibly fresh. It’s not an easy listen, but after thirty-six years it’s still an incredibly intriguing one full of inventive melodies and obtuse arrangements. For first timers, it can be a mindfield of weird but don’t give up on this. ‘Half Moon’ just gets better with every play.