Move D
Beyond the Rave
Self-released
Do you follow Move D on Bandcamp? If so, you’ve likely noticed that David Moufang has spent the last nine months stocking his profile with scads of live recordings and old gems from his back catalog. What inspired this trawl through his archives was unclear—the German deep house / ambient techno veteran didn’t really address the matter—but as the months wore on and the inbox notifications piled up, it certainly seemed like his gaze was stubbornly fixed not on the future, but on all the things he’d done during the past three-plus decades.
And then, with no prior warning, Beyond the Rave showed up. A brand-new solo full-length—his first since 2019’s Building Bridges—it arrived with little fanfare and even less in the way of explanatory context, but within moments of putting the record on, it becomes clear that Move D’s mojo remains intact. True to its title, Beyond the Rave is not an album full of bangers, and Moufang has never been terribly concerned with appealing to the gunfingers crowd, though it’s worth noting that the bassline LP highlight “Dance Oon” is brawny enough to satisfy even the most ardent low-end addicts.
Elsewhere, those craving introspective grooves and psychedelic slow burns will find a lot to love. Beyond the Rave is stuffed with leisurely house tunes—“Эрмитаж” and “The Incorrigible Heartthrob” are some of the standouts in that category—but Move D cooly glides between genres, maintaining the album’s patient energy and subtly soulful sensibility as he changes up the tempo or tries out different drum patterns. “No Strings Attached,” for instance, kicks off the album with a scuttling slice of not-quite-ambient, while “Spacerckr” is a stripped-down number that sounds like a cross between the sumptuous synth-pop of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the plucky laptop beats that powered Morr Music’s golden era. The punchier “Roll Split 2026” flirts with the sci-fi palette of Detroit techno, and “Rise!” is a confidently swinging cut that’s been adorned with what sounds like the elegant chimes of a glockenspiel. Through it all, the energy level rarely rises above a simmer, but that’s just fine; Moufang is wise enough to know that injecting more intensity into the proceedings would surely spoil the vibe.