“I LIKE TO THINK of albums as photographs, because visual representation and recording goes hand in hand with audio,” says Two Moons’ Aaron Liu. “What I’m saying isn’t science, per se. I don’t want to sound like a stoner or anything like that, but sound is about frequencies and the speed at which you arrange your composition in a specific moment. To me, that resonates with using a camera to preserve an image, while still arranging the colors and such in that moment in time.”
The vocalist/guitarist’s own photos have appeared in the zine Semi-OK, and Two Moons’ new EP, Strings, maintains this visual sensibility in musical terms. Liu’s songs inhabit moments of darkness like a light flickering between alienation and connection.
I meet the Portland trio outside the Avalon Theater and Wunderland arcade on SE Belmont on an evening when a windy downpour has begun to turn the record snowfall into slush, but the sidewalks are still caked with a slick layer of ice. Already waiting in the lobby is bass player Mike Bonham; he’s soon joined by Liu and drummer Andrew Massett, whose arm hangs in a sling after he slipped on the ice a few weeks prior. We decide to head to the Triple Nickel, and sit on the patio while a band covers “Say It Ain’t So” inside. I ask Liu if he’s ever been in a cover band, “No, but I kind of wish I was,” he says.