Oakland, CA · psych-pop · synth

Spacemoth

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Maryam Qudus's tape-warped psych project — sci-fi synths and spring-loaded pop songs that wobble like old film, studio-scientist craft throughout.

Spacemoth is the solo project of Maryam Qudus, a musician and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area who previously recorded under the name Doe Eye. Qudus works extensively as a recording engineer and producer for other artists, and that studio background shapes the project, with songs built from layered synthesisers, treated vocals and tape-style effects that blur pop structure and texture.

Following Spacemoth's 2022 debut, No Past No Future, Qudus spent several years touring in support of Tortoise, Spellling and Speedy Ortiz, among others. In 2024 she produced La Luz's News of the Universe, a collaboration that led to her joining that band on the road, writing new Spacemoth material in the back of tour vans with a small synthesizer.

That writing became Inward Eye, an album Qudus describes as built around cycles of nature and memory, a metaphor for the mind's ability to visualize experience. Opener 'Do We Exist?' grows from a single repeating bassline into a dense wash of sound, while 'Internet Fantasy' pairs droning organ and modulated vocals with a steady, bouncing rhythm.

The record's interplay draws on bands built around ensemble motion rather than solo lead lines: Can, Tortoise, Stereolab, and the self-contained repetition of Kraftwerk and Cluster. Tracks like 'North Star' and 'Flower Memory' work in that mold, cyclical and patterned but left loose enough for a listener to find their own way through them.

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psych-popsynth