'Speaking of Music': Moloq

Moloq is an experimental pop band from Atlanta. Its two members, Jake Aron and Paul Stevens, are multi-instrumentalists who share duties on electronics, including synthesizers and samplers, to craft their unique style of dreamy, space-age adventure ballads. Aron also serves guitar and vocals, while Stevens plays the drums.

Describing his songwriting process, Aron admits, “it’s almost a compulsion. An idea will pop into my head like an intrusive thought, and … I’m subservient to the idea.” Stevens’ inspirations seem to have a gentler effect on him. “The flowers are really doing it for me right now. The wisteria I smell, that’s inspiring me,” he says. 

The featured track “Lesson” carried guest vocals from the band’s friend Avery Draut of Night Palace and was written by Stevens in homage to his many years spent working as a piano teacher. Another selection, “Boss,” laments the tribulations of hourly wage labor, dissolving into a psychedelic fizz of crunchy guitars and layered synth textures. It’s on their new EP, “Quits,” out now on Bandcamp.