3 out of 5

Label: Moy Music

Produced by: J. Moy

Constantly morphing to match his style to the various – and many – labels on which MOY has appeared, what might the artist get up to when freed up on his own imprint, Moy Music? Hm… sort of a hodgepodge of the various styles Jonny Moy – MOY – has honed over the years.

‘The Phenomenon of Memory’ is framed as a more personal record for Jonny, encompassing (as suggested by the bandcamp notes) the big changes of parenthood, and a move. The “hodgepodge” I mention is maybe not accidental, with each track representative of a point in time of Moy’s journeys; track titles give us the framework of Sunrise and Dusk as bookends, with the songs inbetween aligned with the ephemeral and blurry nature of the phenomenon of the album title. This journey takes us through some truly excellent ambient to acid-y bumps, funking IDM, and finally into atmospheric rumbles on the closer; all of those are good things – some highlights are great – but Moy’s general ability to take the familiar (often of classic 90s Rephlex or Warp) and reshape them into something melodic, and timeless, feels somewhat boiled down here into just the familiar. Like without the borders of a label to push against, Moy ends up musically chewing on comfort food.

Opener Sunrise shows how this can still be effective: the live-recorded, soft ambient beat has a lovely, loose analog feel, and then Jonny tinkles the most gorgeous piano atop, and it’s a very striking and emotive combo. Later, Forest Dungeon does IDM BPM, but the core beat again has this analog rawness to it that gives the song some immediacy. These small touches do give a sense of different eras smashing together, selling the album theme; perhaps there are smaller touches I’m not hearing, but elsewhere, it’s all just a bit too familiar to – ironically – tell me that it’s MOY.

The digital includes an endless mix of the album; it’s mostly fade outs and ins – I think the pauses between songs are actually a better way to sift through this and appreciate some of the music’s subtleties, but I really appreciate the option.