Less is “Móa”
One jazz-electronica album, that’s it.
© Tommy Boy Records
Growing up in a small country such as Cyprus and thirsting for information (and having to get it) from whatever media was available in the 90s is probably what rendered me obsessed with information hunting and collection as an adult.
In 1998, the almost certainly plagiarized Universal album review in the Greek-speaking music magazine I was able to get my hands on, more or less spoke about an Icelandic girl looking like Uma Thurman who sounded like Billie Holiday and borrowed Bjork’s sound (because Iceland, I imagine).
To a limited extent there was a veracity to what was written (by whoever wrote the original review); Móa (Moeidur Júniusdóttir) does look like a version of Uma Thurman and her singing style does oscillate between jazz-infused pop and pure electronica, but Bille Holiday, Bjork? No.
In 1993 she had released a fully blown Jazz Album titled Móa Syngur Lögin Við Vinnuna (which translates to “Móa Sings The Songs At Work”) and after a stint as the lead vocalist for the industrial rock band “Bong” she eventually released Universal with a semi-return to her jazz roots and by blending that with electronica.
Universal was released in 1998 by Tommy Boy Music and is, by 90s standards, a complete, cohesive electro-pop album with some additional aspects there to unfold. How a sixteen year-old me found and purchased this album in the only short-lived Virgin record store in Cyprus, I am not sure yet. I am almost certain that it must’ve been pure luck that the one copy of it was sitting there for me to find. Also, sixteen year-old me certainly got exactly what he wanted, a new record to dissect, explore and obsess about.
Móa’s high-pitch voice was the first thing I was drawn to. There’s a peculiar texture to it, but it bears a certain depth and a very defined vibrato that indicates that whatever Móa was doing before the release of Universal, it certainly was her homework.
Despite the banality of its lyrics and the sometimes confusing idioms that didn’t translate well to English, the album could have been a great first stab at a more established course for Móa. Virtually after the release of Universal and the mere launch of a couple more singles off it, (with remixes from 90s high-profile DJs, like Dimitri from Paris and Victor Calderone) there was nothing else to be found of a new release or any information on Móa. I will tell you though, that I did learn an awful lot about a now extinct, New Zealand native flightless bird of the same name in the process of searching.
Universal kicks off with Joy and Pain, the only single I was able to find in the form of a (fairly low res) video on YouTube when YouTube eventually became a thing. It has since been uploaded by the official record label account. The majority of the tracks that follow share a common thread of gloomy, jazzy melodies, dressed with electronic arrangements. Everything is quite deliberately entwined with strings, piano and vibraphone elements that draw direct references from Jazz records.
Then, Toy dips in 90s Drum & Bass veering very close to becoming a bandwagon cliché for when it was released, but somehow pulls it of. Memory Cloud and Rocketsstep on a more atmospheric ground without leaving where they should be stepping: Pop. Can’t Forget You and Declaration rev the beat up leading to Raining In My Heart, a happy(happier?) disco-ish track before the album dips into –again, by those90s standards, the “cooldown”/closing part of the album. Overcome is an definitely electronica track, my personal favorite off Universal, gloomy mysterious vibes and all. Virtual Affair ends the album, again remember, this album was released in 1998, virtual-anything was hot. So, naturally, Virtual Affair jumps on the bandwagon, and after having laid out the premise with an entire electro-jazz/pop album. And if you were lucky enough, you would get the edition of the album which contained the remix to Raining In My Heart.
The whole journey, the (in my humble opinion) great effort and the lurking sophistication with which the album was constructed, bore a promise that there would be more to follow. I’m sure there was and there would be, since back then, in the era of online rip-oids of the likes of Napster, Limewire et al, stray tracks of hers would pop up. Namely, You Only Live Twice which I now seem to have lost in the graveyard of dead past hard drives.
I am not sure if I like virtually all the songs of the album (there are exceptions) because of the lack of further work from Móa, so I ended up loving more what was available to me, or because these tracks were sort of imprinted on me in a period where I was, as mentioned before, thirsting for information and stimuli.
Regardless, Universal, in more than one way, helped form my –if I may– aesthetic, not (just) because it was a great album but because back then (and to this day) when I like something, I end up trying to figure out how everything was made: In this case, the songs, the album, the booklet, the designs. I know, it’s called obsessing over something. The physical version of the album (booklet and all) came wherever I went for a few years; when I went to study, when I transferred from Italy to the US and then back. I guess also the fact that Universal was not a one-specific-genre album, showed me that it was OK for something to not fall under solely one category/genre/label. It added a crack to the opening of the door for me to electronica and house music and more complex genres and overlapping collaborations, just in time so that I could welcome Etienne de Grécy, Daft Punk, Superfunk, Basement Jaxx and Cassius to my then expanding collection of albums (so that adulthood wouldn’t be that harsh).
Móa has since released Pure, a new single in October 2022, which is a departure from her electro-jazz concoctions; a ballad of which the centerpiece is now a clearly matured voice.
Universal is unfortunately not available on Apple Music, and is only partially available on Spotify. (I did however purchase an extra second-hand physical copy of the album off Amazon)
Below you can listen to three of my favorite tracks off the album.
© 1998 Tommy Boy Records
