The Octopus Project and Black Moth Super Rainbow don’t immediately seem like natural collaborators.  The former deal in thick, catchy post-rock instrumentals propelled by heavy rhythm section emphasis while the latter tend more towards bleary-eyed synthesized nostalgia in the vague vein of Boards of Canada.  Remarkably though, the two angles prove to have blended seamlessly over the course of the two bands’ recent touring, spawning a sort of densely layered lo-fi synthetic rock.  The individual hands of both bands do occasionally emerge, via BMSR’s bright, bubbly analog melodies and more languid influence, or Octopus’ stabs of electric guitar and sense of urgency, but the best moments occur when both are in concert, building continuously over and around eachother into purely hybrid animals.  Strange, ever-intriguing hybrid animals.

• "Psychic Swelling" MP3
• "Spiracle" MP3