Maybe the Moon is a Bay Area-based indie electro pop duo who have one of the more adorable meet cute stories i’ve heard in recent memory. Karmen Kimball (vocals, keyboards) and Alex Lasner (guitar, keyboards) met at a party on December 21, 2012, which was the end of the 13th cycle of the Mayan calendar and the alleged end of the world as we knew it. Kimball and Lasner bonded over a mutual love of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, and discovered that they had attended the same elementary school together. A few weeks later, they got engaged and started writing and working on the material that would eventually become the batch of singles that the duo will be releasing over the course of this year.

As Maybe the Moon’s Lesner mentioned to me in an email about their latest single, “’The Noise’ is about the crazy thoughts, fears, and everything in-between that go through people’s heads when they can’t fall asleep. The main character ultimately finds comfort in the realization that she’s not alone, the moon is right there by her side, ‘til the dawn, in this room.’” Much like their previous single, “Hammer See Nails,” the song possesses a novelist’s attention to psychological detail, in this song’s case it accurately captures the rapidly vacillating thoughts of the extremely sleep deprived – minutes feel like hours, hours feel like days and your rapidly racing mind doesn’t seem able to stop. The inherent anxiety of the lyrics are emphasized by skittering percussion led by explosive bursts of cymbal, almost vicious synth chords that slowly cascade and flutter towards the listener, and are paired with Kimball’s lovely vocals floating just about the mix before gently fading out. 

If you’ve ever suffered through insomnia, the describes a familiar sensation with an eerily precise accuracy; in fact, you can feel slow sense of dread creeping in just underneath the surface of the song.