Introducing: Mood Taeg

Experimental/Krautrock trio Mood Taeg are gearing up for the release of the official video for their Corpora single. Band member Lowell kindly agreed not only to have a few words with us, but to let us have a sneak peek of the visualiser. Read on to find out more.

First up, could you tell us a bit about the band?

Mood Taeg (pronounced Mood Tag) is a Scottish/German trio. Lowell Freeman, K’ko and tdk. K’ko and tdk are based in Düsseldorf, while Lowell is in Shanghai. The band grew out of a shared love of German rock bands like Neu, Harmonia, Cluster, Can and Kraftwerk as well as others such as Stereolab, Broadcast and Boards of Canada.

What inspires you to write?

It tends to be a new piece of equipment like a synth or guitar, but it’s working for a living that gets in the way of making music.

Who has had the most influence on your music?

For me personally, some early figures in the Dundee scene, such as Gerry Mitchell and bands like Gerils really helped me to loosen up and embrace a little chaos in my music. Then, as anyone who has heard our stuff knows, early German rock like Kraftwerk, Neu and Harmonia. The Streetsounds electro series was also a big thing for me.

What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

People skills and whole selling-yourself thing are not my strengths.

What has been the nicest thing ever written about you?

Best thing is the stuff people who have bought the LP have said, e.g., how the LP helped them cope with the whole Covid-thing. Our stuff is pretty niche, so it makes everything worthwhile.

What has been the best and worst gig you’ve ever played?

Played a gig once where I’d forgotten to turn on the vocoder and the whole audience got a blast of my clean vocals. Best gig was when our keyboard player jumped offstage to do join an Uprock Breakdance battle.

What was the last album or song you listened to?

Was listening to some Tangerine Dream yesterday, Hyperborea. Had forgotten how good those early digital synths sounded.

If you could support anyone, who would it be and why?

Lowell: Big fan of the work of Michael Parenti and Richard D. Wolff.

What are you up to right now?

Lowell: Working on the new album.

Mood Taeg’s Corpora / Konkord single is out now via Happy Robots. You can stream and download the single and more music by the group over on Bandcamp. Corpora also features on the rather lush vinyl version of their Exophora LP.

You can catch up with Mood Taeg on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.