For those seeking an adventurous and unpredictable listening experience that almost entirely avoids the clichés of pop music while embracing the genre, take a trip through Moth Traps’ new album Memory Shapes.
Robyn McIntosh, the human being behind this nine song collection of compositions that feel both experimental and self-assured, describes his music as “hiker pop.” The project is devoted to exploring a vivid intersection between urban life and the wild — a unique position in today’s vast musical stratosphere that started growing when the Welsh artist left his former Brighton-based band The Happiness to settle down in rural Scotland with his family. Following 2021 album Truth Maps and 2023’s Atrophy Myths, Memory Shapes is deeply retrospective of McIntosh’s life, infusing familiar new-wave and alternative rock elements while standing out as a fresh, innovative siren call that may be signaling the next wave of alternative music in a post-genre world.
“Whether interrogating stories from my own past, or examining how the characters in the songs struggle with their histories, every track is an act of retrospection,” he says. “The album artwork reflects my feelings towards my past: a monstrous, unshapely thing beyond my control that is nonetheless inherently a part of who I am, and therefore something that I have had to learn to love.”
This U.K.-based artist is influenced by the imposing rural landscapes that surround him and the still flickering memory-traces of urban explorations, leading to what he describes as “the shifting boundary between growth and decay; the past and the future; the savage and the tamed: the space at the edges of things.”
The poetic description of his unique sonic style starts to make immediate sense when the album begins with “The Dress Rehearsal.”
Shimmery, melodic piano arpeggios warp into experimental alternative funk, instantly ripping the listener out of the ordinary and into McIntosh’s intriguing sound design for his third opus. “Community hall, community hall! You represent freedom that you can call their own, to shape out their futures, to draw out their dreams, dancing and singing and firing their shots of the faith of zealots,” he sings in this intricately layered sonic collage that signals exciting artistry ahead.
“The Fortune Teller” relies on strings, synths, bass and beats, topped off by a strong vocal performance, to weave together a defiant cry of resilience in the face of a psychic’s prediction of dying young. McIntosh explains, “This comes from a story apparently told by the great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson at his 70th birthday party in which he recounted a moment when, as a young boy, a fortune-teller had correctly predicted everything that would happen to him during his life, apart from one thing: he would die young. This story resonated with me and so, in writing the song, I applied it to my own life.” The track is layered with industrial and whimsical textures that harken back to the first half of the 20th century, making it feel antique, modern and risqué all at once. “Writing it felt a little dangerous, like I might be tempting fate…playing with forces beyond my control.”
Then, “Fijit” warps us back to the 21st century, when EDM began pulsing through mainstream collective consciousness. It’s a soulful, nostalgic dance party of a track, painting a picture of a late night out at an underground rave, complete with sirens busting through the soundscape, but instead of ending the party, they’re joining in, transitioning to a higher, hypnotic vibration. “This comes from a longing to dance and go out hard — things I spent many years doing a lot of,” says McIntosh. “Sometimes the memories of these nights and the craving for such feelings of release confront me in a physical way.”
“How We Drove” strips the album back to the basics, piano and voice, at least for a little while, as McIntosh sings, “We took to the night to raise havoc / we took from the night all it had of / the deserted shadow street.” Then, other elements come to play, staying true to the record’s delightfully eclectic, electric and eccentric sound, successfully pushing the boundaries of what pop music can be.
Driving the fifth track, “Bones (Tear Them Down),” is the grit of crunchy electric guitar riffs mixed with more blazing beats and soaring vocals reminiscent of The Cure. Perhaps the catchiest and most commercially accessible track on the album, “Bones” would fit remarkably well on any playlist catering to fans of post-punk, gothic, new-wave bands. Tune into the lyrics to catch this artist’s signature dose of depth as McIntosh tackles Glasgow’s legacy of slavery and shameful past, reflected in the city’s architecture, or as the chorus reminds the listener, “monuments to cruelty that shape the very streets that we are striding on daily.”
“This song needed to be raw to reflect the subject matter. Combining the live guitars with synths took some doing in order to capture the balance between order and discord.” – Robyn McIntosh, Moth Traps
Lyrically, “Skin Envy” is another introspective piece of social commentary, teed up by a lovely, dreamy piano introduction that gives way to and toggles between beats and synths, providing dynamics that break up any formulaic predictability for the genres McIntosh is playing with in this album’s sandbox. Inspired by a loved one’s recent neurodivergence diagnosis, the song explores the hopeless desire to experience the world through another person’s body. The captivating track manages to be both haunting and dreamy, while continuously delivering a catchy and very danceable chorus.
“The last few years have been hugely important for me on a personal level in terms of learning about neurodivergence and having to assess how different my experience of the world might be to so many other people’s. I guess this song represents my artistic response to this shift in understanding, and it’s nice to have something permanent to mark this important period in my life.” – Robyn McIntosh, Moth Traps
“Gaslight” is another haunting piece of experimental alt pop that takes listeners even deeper into McIntosh’s mind — maybe all of our minds – reflecting on self-doubt and deception. A string section builds a compelling tension, while McIntosh’s wailing vocals over industrial drums drive the song to an eerie conclusion.
“My TV Girls,” a piano-driven piece Radiohead fans can easily fall head over heels for, is the second track on the album that breaks from McIntosh’s personal experience in favor of diving into someone else’s story. This time, he was inspired by a mysterious Boston man named Tom Wilkins, whose collection of 911 Polaroids of scantily clad women appearing on his television screen between 1978 and 1982 became a popular installation at art fair Paris Photo. At first suspected of being a pervert, one photo of the photographer dressed in drag suggested the collection of Polaroids found after his death in 2007 was more likely documentation of what he wanted to become, but could not publicly express in the conservative culture of the era. McIntosh’s composition feels fittingly naked at first, with just piano and vocals for nearly two minutes before a tense barrage of strings accompany the declaration, “This is not desire; this is classification. My TV Girls look upon me, angels of authenticity.”
“Most of my music tends to involve fairly complex layering of sounds and textures, and therefore takes time and effort that requires a computer and DAW to achieve. I’d been reading about Tom Wilkins and the struggles uncovered in his photographic archive — this song emerged quickly and organically, with me sat at a piano playing and singing until it was complete. I like the purity of it.” – Robyn McIntosh, Moth Traps
Memory Shapes concludes with “The Morbs,” a soaring warning of the dangers of codependency that serves as an effective closing statement from an artist whose work manages to both blur and break boundaries of pop music’s past and present. Incorporating all of the bells and whistles intricately woven together in previous tracks, it feels like an appropriate grand finale of artistic vision one must truly hear to believe it could possibly exist.
Keep up with Moth Traps on Instagram, here.
Listen to the album here:
Written by Greg Gilman, of Greg in Good Company
Interview by Ryan Cassata
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