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The Soft Moon was Luis Vasquez, the Bay Area musician who turned a solo studio project into one of darkwave's defining acts. Across five albums he fused post-punk, motorik krautrock rhythms, industrial grit, and cold synths into something brooding and anxious, moving from instrumental atmosphere toward raw, confessional songwriting. Exister (2022, Sacred Bones) was the fifth and final record, his most collaborative and emotionally direct, released before Vasquez passed in January 2024.
This one runs deep in our world. We had The Soft Moon at Austin Psych Fest in 2011 and again in 2013, then back for Levitation 2015, so pressing a Levitation Edition of his last album feels like the right way to keep that connection on the shelf.
Exister is the sound of Vasquez opening the doors. Where earlier Soft Moon records felt like a man pacing alone in a concrete room, this one lets other voices in, and the songwriting sharpens because of it. The motorik pulse and industrial corrosion are still here, but the hooks land harder and the vocals sit right up front, unguarded in a way he rarely allowed himself before.
The critics caught the same shift. Pitchfork (7.4) heard a solo artist finally letting others in. Slant (4/5) heard hard-won honesty stretching out his industrial palette. Fair on both counts. If we have one quibble, the back half leans on textures we already know well, and a couple of tracks coast where the openers detonate.
None of that dulls the pressing. This is a vital, vulnerable record from an artist we shared a stage with more than once, and now his last word on wax. The Cloudy Gold and Clear LP, limited to 200, earns its place in the crate.
Recommended if you like: Boy Harsher, Drab Majesty, SRSQ.
