Tom Lark is the psychedelic folk project of New Zealand-based producer/songwriter Shannon Fowler. Moonlight Hotel is his sophomore full-length album under this moniker, following 2023’s Brave Star LP. It features ten laid-back songs in which—and I quote—the artist explores the parallels between his family’s historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison, a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island, and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that leveled much of Ōtautahi.

At first hearing it is a dreamy and melancholic soundtrack for summery days, but at a second glance you realize that the echoes of the past also contain warnings for the future—bittersweet ballads for a world on the brink.

Moonlight Hotel is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Okie Dokie Records.

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