Basking in the Soft Blue Lights

.              Tex Moonlight creates a unique style of music that he calls Americonica; it’s a blend of Americana and electronic music. His latest single “Soft Blue Lights” showcases that blend perfectly.

When I do these reviews, I usually end up wandering hip deep into subgenres that I have either never heard of or completely ignored. With this one, it was a little different. A good portion of my usual playlist is full of Americana. Acts like The Deavil Makes Three, The Dead South, and Goodnight Texas stay in my heavy rotation. At the same time, I listen to a good amount of electronic music. When I heard that Tex Moonlight was combining the two on tracks like “Soft Blue Lights” my interest was immediately piqued.

A Strange Sonic Marriage

I went into this track more curious than anything. I was even a little skeptical; sometimes the combination of two great things comes out less enjoyable than its individual components. It took about fifteen seconds to see that was not the case with “Soft Blue Lights”. The reverb-heavy guitar meets a laid back electronic drum track and creates an almost psychedelic atmosphere. That atmosphere gets deeper when the vocals hit. Moonlight’s delivery sounds like the beginning of a lifetime of drinking whiskey in dive bars; behind this is a pitch-shifted electronic vocal track creating an interesting harmony.

I dig the hell out of the sound of this track. It has the smooth guitar work that I love about neo-folk with that extra-chill psychedelic sound that I personally look for in electronic music most of the time. I never really thought that these two completely different sounds could come together to make something that enjoyable as more than a novelty, but Tex Moonlight nailed it on “Soft Blue Lights”.

Lyrically Speaking

               One of the things that I love about Americana is the storytelling in the lyrics. It’s usually some fairly relatable tale of love, loss, or substance abuse wrapped up in metaphor and poetic imagery.  “Soft Blue Lights” is like that. If you replaced the slick electronic beat with some brushed drums and a sad fiddle this track would fit right in with songs from a good number of other Americana acts. I really dig that about the song. This just goes to show that Tex Moonlight isn’t just grabbing elements of what’s hot right now. He knows and respects the roots of what he’s building and has found a way to cultivate his own branch from those roots.

All in All…

All in all, would I recommend checking out “Soft Blue Lights”? Definitely. Tex Moonlight is taking seemingly incompatible elements and creating a new, original, and interesting sound that is all his own. If you like mellow tunes with insightful lyrics, you’ll dig this track. You can find this track and Moonlight’s debut LP Moonshot on Soundcloud right now. This track and his previous single “Roll You Up” are available on Spotify as well.