Written by: Dave Cantrell

With wild abandon in a cloistered heart, operating on a plane where the profane and the innocent exist in both tension and harmony, Oakland darkwave art noise pioneers Moira Scar, founded by singer/guitarist Roxzan Zatan AKA Roxy Monoxide and Lu Lucifer AKA Lu Lu Gamma Ray (vocals, synth) in 2009 and joined since 2017 by drummer Aimee S., premier their track  “Deviants” ahead of sixth album Between Worlds (credited this time to both Moira Scar and Lu and Roxzan’s parallel project V.E.X.). Obsessive, intense, appearing to swoon inside their own darkly uninhibited worlds, the dancers within – Heather Daddy and Alexander Brown – inhabit the very spirit of the song’s title, expressing with a lithe unselfconsciousness both the beauty and the danger of being outside the accepted norms. It’s through their movements that the track’s central message – the brimming desire for acceptance and inclusivity that living one’s life inside the community of the so-called ‘othered’ makes possible – finds its visceral voice. As for the music, well, yes, it’s dark. It also moves with a power and depth, an intuitive drive, that reflects the many years these musicians have been kicking against the tide, never stinting in their resistance to the stares and demands of what most would call the ‘real’ world that to many of us is more unreal than those inside it could imagine. There is, in short, an inspiring courage to Moira Scar’s continued existence, finding in them a living example that not giving in nor giving up IS an option. Put even more directly? This is fucking art, as pure and dark as it gets, and Stereo Embers is very very proud to bring it to you. [feature photo courtesy Kevin Brown]