It was the fall of 2012 when I first heard about the band The Soft Moon. They might have been recommended to me, or maybe it was an album review for their then new LP Zeros. Whatever road it was that led me to them, I was thankful once I arrived.
The Soft Moon was the musical project of musician/songwriter Luis Vasquez. Vasquez had started out playing in punk bands in his teens before finding a very personal outlet in The Soft Moon. Darkwave, post-punk, and industrial music all flavored with Latin percussion and Vasquez’ unique sonic wizardry became the music for me at the right time. Zeros was a game changer, bringing together all these musical worlds that I loved but never heard quite like how Vasquez did it. Zeros led me to the self-titled debut as well as the Total Decay EP.
It took three years and a move to Italy for Zeros follow-up, Deeper, to arrive. While the debut and Zeros were peppered with vocals(used more like sonic layers than narrative tools), Deeper was Vasquez’ true debut as a songwriter telling a story. The music got gnarlier while the vocals were like open wounds, bleeding Vasquez’ truth. Deeper felt like the album that would make Luis Vasquez and The Soft Moon the heir to Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails’ throne. He was a worthy successor to Reznor’s tattered, bloody, and brutally honest sound world.
Deeper was followed up with 2018s equally excellent Criminal(an album that Vasquez looked inward even more.) He kept honing his studio prowess while never looking away from trauma from the past and how it shaped his worldview as an adult. In 2021 Luis Vasquez released A Body Of Errors, his first album released under his own name. Mostly instrumental, A Body Of Errors was even more personal. A staring at the breaking down of oneself both figuratively and literally. You felt that the journey to that record came with plenty of mental scrapes and bruises but was somehow therapeutic nonetheless.
2022 saw the most personal Soft Moon release to date with Exister. It felt like Vasquez had reached some kind of breakthrough with that record, as it seemed to be mining some deep-seeded trauma while bringing The Soft Moon’s sound to a new level. Exister sounded as if it could have been a final chapter in The Soft Moon’s long-running story. And possibly a good spot for Vasquez to build a new path.
That new path will never be built, sadly. Luis Vasquez died early on the morning of January 19th, 2023. No cause of death has been revealed, but he passed away along with two others in a home in Los Angeles and is a suspected Fentanyl overdose.
If you’re coming to The Soft Moon as a new listener I’d recommend starting with Deeper. Then listen to the self-titled debut. Then Exister, Criminal, Zeros, the EPs, and then A Body Of Errors. Not that A Body Of Errors isn’t worthy of a spot higher up. It’s just that once you listen to the Soft Moon records A Body Of Errors will make more sense. It’ll hit a little harder.
We lost a real one in Luis Vasquez. RIP. Go explore the world of The Soft Moon here.
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