The anarchic punk regime enforced by Fat White Family has rippled through music culture over the last few years culminating this year in their sophomore album release, Songs For Our Mothers. Two of the main figures at the realm of Fat Whites; Lias and Saul, formed The Moonlandingz in 2015 along with Sheffield-based group, The Eccentronic Research Council. The Moonlandingz are a semi-fictional group that revolve around narcissism and everything ‘anti’ – it’s a disgusting thrill to listen to and even more exciting to discuss. Why, you ask? Well, it’s everything you want music to be in 2016 – distorting, terrifying and slightly unnerving.

To really understand what The Moonlandingz are all about, you need to take into account the topsy-turvy year we have just endured. Brexit, Trump, refugee crises, Bowie, Prince, Cohen – the list goes on. Trying to normalise existence nowadays is hard. We live in a fake reality, one that suffers manipulation on a daily basis, another so-and-so telling us how to interpret detail with the end result: yet more confusion. Rather than challenge this in a typical fashion, The Moonlandingz opt to satirise the process, distorting it further for comedy’s sake.

Back in spring of 2015, The Eccentronic Research Council released their fourth album, Jonny Rocket, Narcissist & Music Machine… I Love You – a mouthful of a title at best but one that set the scene for The Moonlandingz, the absurd world they inhabit was created here. The album tells a story set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Valhalla Dale, narrated by Maxine Peake; a character obsessed with a Humbert Humbert-like figure (the narrator from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita) called Jonny Rocket. Rather than let the album be narrative and nothing more, The ERC enlisted Lias and Saul from Fat White Family to personify the characters, with Lias taking on the role of Jonny Rocket. Let the satanic proceedings begin…

The liminal position that The Moonlandingz take is largely far more important than the music – and I say this with no disrespect to the songs on Black Hanz whatsoever. Where the group position themselves, a fictional group in a post-truth reality, helps makes every track seem louder, every stutter of the synthesiser harsher and every reverberated yell of Jonny Rocket ever more present. ‘Black Hanz’ is a raucous nosedive through shamanic whirls of electronica, mixed with a thumping percussion that is sure to create chaos when witnessed live. ‘Drop It Fauntleroy’ is a ritualistic chant, a gliding sweep through the church of The Moonlandingz that ends with hypnotic head-bobbing.

The further destabilisation of our already destabilised world puts one in a position of real confusion, something that is only egged on by the neurotic eyes of ‘The Cement Garden’. The track acts as a possible interlude, splitting The EP, but instead it feels sadistic in its approach. It teases the remainder of the EP, you feel cautious as you hit the final track but such is the addictive narrative of Black Hanz, you can’t help but fall into it.

‘Psych Ersatz’, the final track, is the whacked-out staring into the mirror song on the EP. Swirling with Rocket’s narcissism, you gaze back at yourself through the eyes of washed out psychedelia and electronica, it’s part Kraftwerk, part Amorphous Androgynous – there’s no sun-kissed glitter here though. This song screams of Bret Easton Ellis, George Orwell and Anthony Burgess – crippled with dystopia and self-obsession.

Coincidentally, for anybody TV-savvy, the BBC have just released Adam Curtis’ latest documentary, Hypernormalisation. The documentary analyses the distorted reality we currently live in. A reality that allows people like Donald Trump and Putin’s advisor, Vladislav Surkov to manipulate election processes and confuse the system – ultimately leading to a media version of the world that bears no resemblance to what is actually going on. The Moonlandingz tamper with this chaotically and summarise this notion perfectly with their earlier work, such as ‘Sweet Saturn Mine’: “Before you go and overdose on truth / Well cool it baby, spit it out, I'll show you what to do”.

What is truth? What does it matter anymore? This is the world of The ERC and Jonny Rocket. There is no reality any more so let’s fall into this world – it’s equally as terrifying but a lot more fun.
Tom Churchill

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