Mobius Band With "Friends Like These"

Boston blog-in-arms ExitFare here earlier this week dug up the local Mobius Band tour dates we've been hoping for, which were reiterated in an email received from the band today. The trio will play Northampton, Mass. Nov. 30, and then the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, Mass. Dec. 2. We've sort of given up on seeing shows in the Middle East Down, but we'll certainly make an exception for these guys. Mobius Band issues its Misra Records debut (and sophomore full length co-released with Ghostly International) Heaven Oct. 2, and the latest promo track, the synth heavy, Peter Sax-sung "Friends Like These," has been released here via indie music, pop and gossip concern Stereogum.com. The band begins a tour Oct. 1 and is out on the road for five weeks before pausing as the Massachusetts dates grow nearer. And check it out, the band now shares the same PR rep as Wilco and Jeff Tweedy. Wild.

We've spent more than a few minutes pondering the cover of Heaven. The image of the woman eating the apple -- a picture that we are told was shot by John Vanderslice that is shown in cropped form above -- with the album title plastered over part of her face is deeply evocative. In case some of you didn't take a Humanities seminar your freshman year, what we're describing is basically a representation of Eve eating of the Fruit of Knowledge. Prior to that Biblical (we'd argue, mythical) act, Heaven didn't exist, because Adam and Eve lived in Eden, and there was no need to aspire to a utopian afterlife in that pre-lapsarian existence. We could go pretty far down this path (our outline would go something like: "fall from grace," "fallen woman," "knowledge," "betrayal," etc.) and cross-reference it against the recent personal set-backs that the members of Mobius Band experienced during the writing of Heaven as outlined here. But that is going a little overboard. What we did want to say is that this is the first album cover in years that we've actually sat and thought about for this long. It's an experience that pretty much has died/is dying because of the digitization of music, and that's a shame. As a kid we could spend the better part of an afternoon looking at the covers of Led Zeppelin or Rush records looking for meaning.

Mobius Band -- "Friends Like These" at Stereogum -- Heaven
[pre-order Heaven here]