A very enigmatic band hailing from our very own Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Black Moth Super Rainbow (BMSR) are quite unique. The sound has been described as “folk meets electronic.” Many of their songs are instrumental and have a kind of mysterious sound.

BMSR’s music contains elements of psychedelia, folk, electronica and pop. This is achieved by instruments such as a vocoder, Rhodes piano and a Novatron.

An insert in their album Dandelion Gum describes them as such: “Deep in the woods of western Pennsylvania vocoders hum amongst the flowers and synths bubble under the leaf-strewn ground while flutes whistle in the wind and beats bounce to the soft drizzle of a warm acid rain. As the sun peeks out from between the clouds, the organic aural concoction of Black Moth Super Rainbow starts to glisten above the trees.”

The band’s members came together in 2000 in a group called satanstompingcaterpillars. In 2003, they added more members and renamed themselves Black Moth Super Rainbow. BMSR’s first album, Falling Through a Field was released that same year; it’s basically a “best of” collection from satanstompingcaterpillars.

In 2005, BMSR released their second album Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods. This album was their first release on the Graveface label.

The band’s third and most successful album Dandelion Gum was released in 2007. It was met with positive reviews and relative commercial success.

In 2008, the band released Drippers. This EP contains not only new songs, but quite a few lost songs from the Dandelion Gum era. Along with the EP, the band released Bonus Drippers on their MySpace, which includes many unreleased songs.

In 2009, the band released their fourth album, entitled Eating Us.

In 2012, Tobacco posted on his Facebook that a new BMSR album (the band’s fourth) would be released that same year. The album was to be titled Psychic Love Damage, but it was later scrapped because “it wasn’t very exciting. and not good enough in my opinion for you to spend your $ on. So I junked it for its best moments and made an album that I’m really in love with.”

Later in 2012, BMSR released their actual fifth album. The release of the album, entitled Cobra Juicy, was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. Different donation ranges contain different prizes, beginning with $1 for a digital download of the upcoming single “Windshield Smasher” to $10,000 for a rollerskating party in Western Pennsylvania to be DJ’d by Tobacco. Most prizes contain CDs, LPs or digital downloads of the new album. A bonus prize to be included is also a digital download of the abandoned Psychic Love Damage EP.

While the band is still together, many of the members have their own solo side projects. Hopefully, they will release something altogether very soon.