Love and Rockets “Earth Sun Moon” 1987. Big Time Records. Today, July 31st, is Daniel Ash’s birthday (b. 1957). Ash is a giant in the goth genre, part of Bauhaus and Tones on Tail as well as Love and Rockets; his guitar sound other-wordly, dark spinning shadow dreams, psychedelic and slinky.

“Earth Sun Moon” includes the band’s first hit “No New Tale to Tell,” which reached #18 on the US charts. I love this song, with its acoustic intro, quiet-loud-quiet structure and deep-thought philosophical lyrics (“You cannot go against nature because if you do, go against nature is part of nature too”). “The Light” is spectacularly dark (”Do you remember the blackest moment, those blackest thoughts that rush?”). Even on songs that are slightly less gloomy (but gloom is a good thing here!) and include elements like saxophone – decidedly not goth in my opinion – (i.e. “Waiting for the Flood”), the undercurrent of glorious sadness permeates it all.