Moon Diagrams, the solo project of Deerhunter‘s Moses Archuleta, has announced new album Cemetery Classics, which will be out June 21 via Liars frontman Angus Andrew’s No Gold in the US and Sonic Cathedral in the UK. It’s his first release since the 2019 Trappy Bats mini-album and the follow-up to Moon Diagram’s 2017’s debut Lifetime of Love. It features contributions from Cindy Lee‘s Patrick Flegel, Gang Gang Dance’s Josh Diamond, and Anastasia Coope, and was mixed by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Blur, Pet Shop Boys, more).
The genesis of the album began in Tokyo in 2019 following a Deerhunter tour. “My writing naturally shifted, being in a different physical space,” Archuleta says of the album. “So, naturally, these songs held a bit more immediacy or severity than what I had written in the past.”
As for the feel of the album, Archuleta says, “James and I had talked about industrial noise and the tape experiments going on in some Faust recordings and the rudimentary appeal of the first Daft Punk record. I was also thinking about massive sculpture – Richard Serra and stuff like that – and trying to create music that takes up space.” He adds, “It’s the inverse of a desert island disc – a graveyard disc. Songs to take into the afterlife.”
The first single from Cemetery Classics is “Very Much My Promise to You,” a mesmerizing, ethereal cut-and-paste dreampop collage which features vocals from Anastasia Coope. There’s a little trip hop in there too and you can watch the video below.
Cemetery Classics
1. NRG
2. Mousetrap
3. Fifteen Shows at One Time
4. Metallics in Fur
5. Big Ref
6. Rewop
7. Brand New Effie
8. Neptune
9. Very Much My Promise to You
10. Listen to Me
11. Left Hand of God
12. Fragment Rock