Moons In Retrograde – Mirror Obscura

Mirror images in the shadows

The song ‘Mirror Obscura’ by Moons In Retrograde imme­di­ately put me in a strange state of ten­sion that I hadn't expec­ted. For me, it's a clas­sic slow burn­er – one of those tracks that unfolds gradu­ally and then has an even stronger effect.

The intro imme­di­ately reminded me of Björk with its quirky, almost arty sounds. This ref­er­ence came to mind spon­tan­eously, even though the track as a whole is, of course, head­ing in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tion. What really irrit­ated me were the quiet, hip­pie-style gui­tars (02:28) scattered through­out the middle of the song. In my opin­ion, they don't fit in with the over­all concept. But just as I was about to take offence at this break, the song com­pletely won me over: sud­denly I was deeply drawn in.

What impresses me most about ‘Mirror Obscura’ is its com­plex­ity. The piece lay­ers dif­fer­ent levels on top of each oth­er without los­ing itself. For me, the vocals are the heart of the song – some­times soul­ful, some­times dark, and always with an aston­ish­ing range. Lyrically, I am par­tic­u­larly drawn to the idea that dark­ness is not only a threat, but also a source of depth. Lines like "a mir­ror of bur­ied pain" con­nect per­son­al dark­ness with a more uni­ver­sal reflec­tion.

The song is part of the album ‘The Third Side Of The Coin’. The accom­pa­ny­ing video by Brian Pritt and Kara Kuckoo fits per­fectly for me because it not only illus­trates the atmo­spher­ic dens­ity of the track, but also expands it, and above all, it is hand­made (Fuck AI).

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Lyrics of "Moons In Retrograde – Mirror Obscura"

I love the beauty of the night
The depth of rot in deaths kiss
I scratch that curi­ous itch
I melt into your darkness
I unearth “ungodly” fears
alchemise salt to tears
scrap­ing sludge from veins
a mir­ror of bur­ied pain
I love the beauty of the night
so i can watch the sunrise
Melting into the deep
the dark­ness plays for keeps
the deep ocean, the deep ocean
come fall into the deep
the deep