Chicago band Moon Cub invites us to daydream in their debut single, "Utopia 90." That's the sound of memory for something you didn't realize you missed, a poignant, gorgeously disorienting. The debut single from the new collaboration from Rob (Luna Waves) and Suzy Muir, the track is a genre-dodging love letter to that fuzzy 90's halcyon dream of positivity.
Moon Cub is no mere side project. It's a new way of thinking about creativity. Embarking from Rob's solo road paved by Luna Waves, Moon Cub welcomes full collaboration. Suzy Muir comes on not as a featured voice but as a co-pilot, the two artists sharing vocal and lyrical duties and forging a connection that's as smooth as it is easy.
"Utopia 90″ cruises on the same surface textures of trip-hop and indie electronica, conjuring up the ethereal fingerprints of Portishead and Boards of Canada. But while that could often entail the darker recesses of the genre for their predecessors, Moon Cub leans into something warmer, wistful. Synths pulse like city lights on a human drive home. The layered vocals take turns drifting in and out like memories at the edge of sleep.
The song explores the universal experience of spacing out during a journey, whether a cross-country train ride or a peaceful commute, and getting lost in a thoughtful reverie. It narrates the 1990s not as a specific point of reference but as a state of mind, an age when the future still shimmered with potential.
If this initial single is any indication, Moon Cub is preparing its own musical skyline for 2025 in an ocean of ether above some post-industrial rain forest, where introspection and melody float, weightlessness to each other. "Utopia 90" is a gateway. Then walk through it, and don't be surprised if you linger for more.
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