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The UK’s experimental duo The Hare and The Moon calls its music ‘spook folk,’ and as it’s October already we figure it’s a good time to highlight their page. The descriptor is certainly accurate as their music is clearly traditional or traditional-derived, yet ethereal and infused with ominous and foreboding overtones; you know something’s a bit off (in all the right ways, if you’re into that sort of thing) when your cheeriest song is the classic murder ballad “Long Lankin.” Resplendent with ringing tones, subtle percussion, lovely but fragile vocals, and an electric guitar tone straight out of the celestial vault, it’s the easiest introduction to their Soundcloud page. Headphones recommended to capture the lushness of their soundscapes. If you’re in the mood for more frightening stuff, visit their whole page and let it play.

Q & A

What is your goal in recording and sharing music?

To present traditional ballads in a manner that befits their content, which tends to mostly involve murder, ghosts, death and talking ravens. To create a kind of ‘haunted folk’, something that speaks of our influences which include 1970’s children’s TV shows like ‘The Owl Service’, the writers MR James, Arthur Machen and Robert Aickman, the artists Louis Wain and Arthur Rackham and the cinema of the Czech New Wave as well as films such as The Wicker Man, The Innocents and The Haunting.

Come up with a descriptive, original genre name for your music.

I’m rather fond of the afore mentioned ‘Haunted Folk’ or perhaps ‘Spookfolk’. These sum up our modus operandi. We have been described as ‘Scotland’s finest exponents of gothic folk doom’ but I rather suspect we are probably Scotland’s only exponents of folk doom. Ah well.

Who do you view as a likely audience for your music?

I have no idea. We welcome all comers. We certainly do seem to have developed a small but extremely lovely group of individuals who follow what we are up to and buy our albums. One aspect I have noted is that we seem to appeal to not only people who like folk music but to psych fans, to more experimental types, to followers of black metal and to a few other genres in between as well.

If trapped on a desert island with only 3 songs, which would they be?

1. “Symptom of the Universe” by Black Sabbath
2. “The Dreamer is Still Asleep” by Coil
3. “Hunting Song” by Pentagle

Is there an instrument you do not currently play that you’d like to learn?

I can’t really play any instrument that I do use to be honest, I just kind of get sounds out of them somehow. Whether these sounds are either musical or listenable is arguable! I’d love to be able to play the violin, I’m always on the look out for violin players so it would save me the bother.

Who is your musical hero(es), if any?

I have many; Coil, Black Sabbath, Pentangle, Swans, Sandy Denny, Einsturzende Neubauten, Nico, The Legendary Pink Dots, Nurse With Wound, Caedmon, Mellow Candle, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel era Genesis, Lubos Fiser, Earth,Syd Barrett, Vernon Elliott…and countless others.

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