BELLA1587 // 13 December 2024

Released via Bella Union in 2004, the debut album from Bikini Atoll, the quartet of Joe Gideon, his sister - former Olympic gymnast - Viva Seifert, Bastian Juel and Ché Albrighton is a collection of crushingly graceful songs which showcased the band’s uncanny knack for creating beauty from sadness. From the opening swirl and buzz of the instrumental title track to the echoing ghosts that fade out sprawling closer ‘Clear Water Gravity’, Moratoria pierces emotional trigger-points with the precision of a master acupuncturist. Along the way it gathers soaring post-rock, clanging alt-rock and moments of sparseness and serenity, reaching its epic and melancholic high point via the fragile lament of ‘Desolation Highway’.

Bikini Atoll gained a cult following before disbanding a few years later following the release of their Steve Albini-produced second album, Liar’s Exit. Frontman Joe Gideon subsequently went on to form another cult outfit, Joe Gideon & The Shark, with his sister Viva and recently released a solo album titled Altered Self on Labelman Records. He is currently touring Europe with King Hannah. Meanwhile, his sister Viva has a new band called Lunge that she formed with her husband Mark Cleveland from the Archie Bronson Outfit.