Released: 2024
Genre: Psychedelic rock, Progressive, Jazz
Sounds Like: The Budos Band, Pink Floyd, All Them Witches
Homeland: Moncton, New Brunswick
What makes Elephant Wizard elite and sit atop OHMs Peak?
Elephant Wizard is by far one of the more creative albums to hit our rotation in quite some time. It's impossible to connect them to one particular genre as they flawlessly blend progressive rock, heavy psych and even jazz/lounge into this masterpiece
Les Moontunes display tremendous vision on this album. One moment your in a chill state of mind with songs like 'Fallen For You' and 'Midnight Magic' than they hit you with the psych weirdness of 'Gallop in the Jungle' and 'Beyond the Mountain'
This album is very refreshing and puts us in a totally different frame of mind when exploring new heavy music
Do not sleep on their 2021 debut release, it may not have the heavier tilt this album has, but it's well worth your time
Track Listing:
1. Elephant Wizard 3:13
2. Syntherlude 1 0:36
3. Enchanted Tusks 04:11
4. Fallen for You 4:48
5. Syntherlude 2 0:43
6. Midnight Magic 4:07
7. Gallop in the Jungle 3:18
8. Syntherlude 3 0:27
9. Wizard Universe 5:05
10. Beyond the Mountain 4:46
11. Syntherlude 4 1:02
12. Planet Metal 4:36
13. Syntherlude 5 0:52
14. Dorian Sunrise 3:57
Dive deeper into Elephant Wizard with our Q&A with Les Moontunes
OHMs Peak: Elephant Wizard is one of this year's most exploratory albums to hit our collection. It's a psychedelic trip of proggy jazz, heavy psych and lounge. Can you give us a glimpse into the creative writing process that went into this album given seven band members?
Les Moontunes: The Elephant Wizard album came about during the thick of the pandemic – our singer/pianist Miguel thought the idea of a character that was an elephant wizard could be cool, and it took off from there as far as the album’s concept goes. As far as the music goes, we had a few songs that were already written, we knew we wanted to move towards a heavier direction, so we kept that in mind while writing the songs. We had a few riffs or ideas that we really built on and developed into songs together during a residency in rural NB in the summer of 2021.
OHMs Peak: This album displays a heavier feel from your debut. Is this a direction the band is heading towards? Would love to get into the band’s psyche here?
Les Moontunes: For this album, for sure, it was a conscious decision, where all members have been influenced by heavier bands in the past, and we thought it would be cool to dive into tones and sounds that reflected that. Especially having 2 drummers, we really wanted to take advantage of that, and then add on the more soul/jazzy elements of our sound, it was really fun to explore that territory together. As far as what’s next for us, we will have to wait and see, but we definitely have been enjoying headbanging during our shows lately!
OHMs Peak: There is such a wide variety of genres you touch upon and flawlessly make it work. Where does Les Moontunes draw inspiration from and how did you all come together?
Les Moontunes: We all met growing up, we attended the same school in Dieppe, New Brunswick. Everyone eventually connected through their love of music, and we started jamming from there which led to us being a band.
We draw inspiration from a bunch of different genres, we’re all quite open to listening to a wide variety of sounds so that plays into how we create our own. For this album, we drew inspiration from old school bands that were heavy such as Black Sabbath, as well as King Crimson for their experimental flair. We also really like bands who play with horn sounds such as the Budos Band, so you can expect some of that in our latest album.
OHMs Peak: The album cover so unique, like nothing we have seen. It appears Miguel created the concept? Would love to get more insight behind the creation?
Les Moontunes: At first, Miguel drew a draft for what we would like the concept album to look like – we wanted something that would reflect the stoner metal/doom band aesthetics, and we really liked what he ended up doing for the draft so he built on that. We wanted the Elephant Wizard to be undeniably epic-looking, so Miguel drew the character on its native land, Planet Metal, a place that we invented and developed with the album, surrounded by thunder and mountains which we thought looked badass. We were all very happy with the result.
OHMs Peak: Take us through how you came about the name Les Moontunes and what does it represent?
Les Moontunes: That’s a bit of a funny story – we had booked a gig before having a name, and so during the very last rehearsal before our gig, we were really in a rush to settle on a name. We literally wrote down just a bunch of ideas on a board and chose Les Moontunes from there, since we liked the fact that it’s in chiac (the Acadian dialect we speak), and that it reflected the space-y sound we were making at that time. It ended up being really fun to play around with space-related concepts from there on, so that worked out!
OHMs Peak: Les Moontunes is stranded on an island with only a solar powered record player. The entire band must agree to only 1 album to have during your stay… what album is it?
Les Moontunes: Everyone in the band agreed that if we were limited to one album, it would have to be The Dark Side of the Moon!
Les Moontunes:
Miguel Dumaine: Vocals, Pianos, Organ, Synthesizers, Vocoder
Patrick Gaudet: Electric Guitar
Samuel Frenette: Electric Guitar
Jeremie Poitras: Alto Saxophone and Synthesizers
Monica Ouellette: Bass, Trumpet, String Synthesizer
Martin Daigle: Drums and Percussion
Marc-Andre Richard: Drums
Producer: Mike Trask
Recording Engineers: Thomas Stajcer at Fang Recording (drums, bass, piano & organ)
Mike Trask at Vallée Recording (guitars, vocals, synths, horns, percussion)
Assistant Engineer: Sam Mallais at Vallée Recording
Mixing: Thomas Stajcer assisted by Mike Trask
Mastering: Jay Lapointe at Archive Mastering
Artwork: Miguel Dumaine
Follow Les Moontunes: Bandcamp / Facebook / LesMoontunes.com
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