more from
Listenrecords
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €10 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    The vinyl edition of 'Slap Back Baby' comes as a black vinyl, limited to 300 pieces in a hard cover sleeve.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Slap Back Baby via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 300 

      €20 EUR or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The CD edition of Slap Back Baby comes in a gatefold digi sleeve and is limited to 300 pieces.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Slap Back Baby via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 300 

      €18 EUR or more 

     

1.
All Is Flow 02:52
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Summerhill 03:32
8.
9.
10.

about

Although a certain air of lightness and unselfconsciousness is usually attributed to young artists at the beginnings of their careers, experience should most certainly not be underestimated as a basis for these attributes. Fabian Simon has been touring the German indie scene as a songwriter for many years. With an ever-present air of calmness in a world of chaos, he has released music again and again. His most recent album, Coconut Dreams (April 2020), saw him team up with The Moon Machine to dress his solo pieces in a band garb. Now the next album by Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine is just around the corner, and all of a sudden an innocent lightness resonates in the new songs.
The new album Slap Back Baby has become a genuine spring album, but it will ripen for the subsequent summer too. It seems as if the group around Simon doesn’t care for the expectations and conventions out there, as if there’s nothing more natural than just writing casual songs. Influenced in equal measure by psychedelic, folk and chamber pop, Slap Back Baby represents a uniquely tranquil selling point in the German music scene. You can hear the great craftsmanship of the songs despite their lack of preconceptions. Anyone who has attended a concert by Fabian Simon should already be familiar with the great guitar playing of this Berliner-by-choice. Everyone else should listen to Slap Back Baby with their full attention, because all kinds of fine musical details can be found within it.

During sessions for the self-produced album in Hanover, Germany – home of The Moon Machine – the three makers added a whole range of other instruments to the live lineup of electric guitar, drums and keys. On Slap Back Baby, you will also hear French horn, trumpet, violin, flute, harmonium, zither, piano, xylophone, Hammond organ, percussion, analog synthesizers and all kinds of obscure electric pianos (Wurlitzer, Vermona, Casio), as well as 12-string, slide, bass and baritone guitars.
Slap Back Baby opens with All Is Flow, the most relaxed introduction imaginable. Here, an upbeat Simon takes us by the hand and shows us immediately what we can expect in the following minutes: psychedelic melodies, Kraut guitars and folky structures.
It is somehow logical that the following Harbour Song Song is about a song that was never written – the Harbour Song. A pinch of Dada is also part of all this, because taking oneself too seriously is forbidden!
After that comes 21st Century Blues, whose beginnings go back to a concert by Sophie Hunger at the Alinae Lumr Festival 2019. Here, Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine magic up a tender gem of a song, 21st Century Blues or not.

Things get serious next with the aptly-titled Peculiar Song, which gets down and bluesey and will keep noggins nodding! The three musicians once again weave their dreamlike interplay magic here, as the instruments dizzyingly encircle each other.
With Man Inside Man, Slap Back Baby then simultaneously soothes us and awakens our sense of longing. No sound could better express such emotion than the soft retro thrums of the Wurlitzer piano.
Traffic And Astronomy is an intoxicating observational orgy where the lyrics and the instrumentation mesh perfectly as one.

Such an inebriating work can only lead to the tip of the iceberg, which on Slap Back Baby is – without a doubt – the crazy Summerhill. Already at Simon’s 2021 shows, concertgoers were amazed at how much bravery, exuberance and knowing winks could be squeezed into one single song – they could hardly keep themselves in their Corona-conforming socially-distanced seats! Rest assured that 2022’s feelgood hit of the summer has been found!

The following Ueber die Geduld hints at Simon’s profound lyrical talent for German language based on the title and the accompanying Kraut escapades alone, even if the song itself is completely without lyrics and vocals.

The dramatically beginning Here Comes The Rain then begins to give the listener the fear that album is soon to close, and gives a foretaste of the mood that follows – something between melancholy and elation.
Fortunately though, Slap Back Baby ends with a daring finale. Here everyone should know why Fabian Simon is rightly compared with the great Elliot Smith. In One Strange Day, the complete absurdity of life is built up and torn down with much momentum and effort, and at the very last a hope-giving funeral chorale is heard – what a climax!
In terms of content, Fabian Simon deals with all kinds of echoes on Slap Back Baby: many images and snippets of his lyrics refer to this phenomenon, starting with ancient myth, through interpersonal (mis)communication, to the echo chambers of social networks. The album title also alludes to this: the term slap back delay originated in the 1950s in the course of the further development of studio technology and describes a short echo from the tape machine. In this respect, the title Slap Back Baby can also be understood as an homage to the beginnings of pop music. With all of this theoretical underpinning, the album captivates with its detailed arrangements and emotional depth. And after listening, you’re left with this inexplicable lightness at the end.

Fortunately, there are still a few genuine old-head musical artists who free themselves from the constraints and hardships of the music industry and just go for it. Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine seem to be the perfect combo for this.

Slap Back Baby is released on April 22 2022 on the Berlin label Listenrecords.

credits

released April 22, 2022

Moon Population:

Fabian Simon: Vocals | Guitar | Bass | Keyboard | Piano | Harmonium
Jakob Dinkelacker: Drums | Percussion | Keyboard | Trumpet | French Horn | Vocals
Nicolas Schneider: Keyboard | Synthesizer | Bass | Piano | Vocals

All music and lyrics written by Fabian Simon.
Arranged by Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine.
Engineered by Nicolas Schneider.
Mixed by Lukas Kurz.
Mastered by Philipp Welsing.

Cover Photo & Design by Nicolas Rösener.

Thanks:
Nico, Mariam, Christopher, Clemens, Nikola, Till, Lukas, Philipp, Verena, Jürgen, Heide, Brie, Adam, Joe, Annette, Rainer, Héctor, Stella, Tobias, Lotte, Axa, Dorle, Gisela, Stephan, Susanne, Sandra, Markus, Lilly, Christopher, Noah, Ringo.

Supported by Initiative Musik gGmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine Berlin, Germany

What happens when Elliott Smith's love of harmony combines with Tropicalismo's delight for sonic madness and then appears in the mystical twilight of Twin Peaks? You get the best-kept secret in the German indie scene: Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine.

contact / help

Contact Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine recommends:

If you like Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine, you may also like: