Angus Barter – guitar, vocals
Dave Bean – drums, vocals
Mike Breen – guitar
Valentina Cardinalli - vocals
Samantha Letourneau - flute, vocals
Dave Read – bass guitar, synths
Moths & Locusts are diehard space-rock explorers hailing from the pulsating heart of Vancouver Island. They
create dynamic, heavy, melodic, fuzz-drenched explorations of the inner and outer cosmos inspired by their
love of psychedelia, Krautrock, science fiction, vinyl records, and delay pedals. Trance inducing dream-
scapes intertwine with visceral blazing garage rock bangers and all elements of the intervening spectrum are
sampled. Always over the groove, always.
The early years of Moths & Locusts brought a steady stream of west coast shows and two self-produced 7"s,
one split with Victoria's New Colors. The band's passion for unique physical products saw a buzzing lock-
groove on the first single and a rare concentric grooves approach to the split where two versions of Nero's
Tale lie side-by-side and the luck of the needle drop determines which one is played.
In 2011 the band set up camp at the Noise Floor Studio and with engineer Jordan Koop at the controls
recorded a flood of material with an album's worth of arranged songs and hours of improvised jams and
experiments. The following months found the boys in their home studios and their beloved jam space "The
Republic of Doom" layering, arranging and whittling down the hours of audio to the essential moments. The
first release of this material was a 12" 45rpm EP of a sprawling jam Escape from Sector C where the B-sideis
a vinyl-only version of the same song played in reverse. It is affecting both ways, but differently so.
The epic first full-length album was released on NoiseAgonyMayhem Records in 2013 and given a suitably epic
title - Mission Collapse in the Twin Sun Megaverse. The gatefold cover and coloured vinyl are works of art
unto themselves. The album was very well-received and spent time on Earshot's national charts. 2013 also saw
the band sharing the stage with some high profile veterans, starting with psych-prog heavyweights Rangda,
and rocking the main stage at the Quadrapalooza festival.
The summer of 2013 brought an unbelievable opportunity - Moths & Locusts was the backbone of a psych-rock
orchestra, including members of Colliding Canyons and Wolf Parade, backing legendary Can vocalist Damo
Suzuki. A multi-track recording of the improvised set to a sold-out crowd beautifully captured the creative
alchemy of the night and later that year the 2XLP Seven Potatoes - Damo Suzuki Live in Nanaimo was
distributed to krautrock devotees around the world. Nanaimo sounds like “seven potatoes” in Japanese.
Two studio sessions followed - one at Lap of Luxury in Victoria in the fall of 2014 and to the re-located
Noise Floor on Gabriola Island in the spring of 2015. Another mountain of music was distilled over months in
the laboratory to extract the mind altering substances contained within and enhance it with synths through
distinct effects chains and input from friendly collaborators. More highlights of this period included
headlining the National Campus and Community Radio Conference showcase with The Backhomes, opening for
godfathers of grunge Mudhoney, and a packed Vancouver show with Dan Boeckner's band Operators. After the
Operator’s show, Jeremy Schmidt (Black Mountain, Sinoia Caves) pegged Moths & Locusts sound as being like
“biker disco” - a favourite original genre tag.
A 2014 Vancouver Island show with Canadian journeyman Ian Blurton's new band Public Animal was a meeting of
kindred spirits and plans for a split 7" were realized in 2015 timed with a shared western Canadian summer
tour. The outro of each band's song is the intro to the other's making a seamless circle of sound. The tour
was a total success and included live to air sessions on CFUV in Victoria and CITR in Vancouver. After the
tour Moths & Locusts set to work on finishing LP #2, Helios Rising, released in May 2016 on NoiseAgonyMayhem
Records and Sunmask Records.
The band was asked by upstart UK-based psych label Eggs in Aspic to contribute a volume to their global
psych cassette series. A free-form studio session with producer Rob the Viking (of Canadian hip hop crew
Swolen Members) yielded a mountain of sounds that was sliced, diced and re-configured into the twisting trip
of an LP - Intro / Outro in late 2017. The band brought their live show to to eastern Canada for the first
time playing Ottawa, Montreal, London, Toronto, Kingston and Kitchener to stunned crowds.
Studio contributions by vocalist Valentina and flautist Samantha grew to the full-time inclusion of these
two amazingly talented women in the band’s live shows in 2018 bringing new tones and textures to their mind-
melting performances, which included a second attendance at Calgary’s Sled Island, headlining one night of
Victoria’s Psych and Soul Showcase and Nanaimo’s Backyard Fest, and joined the line-up at Nelson BC’s
Massif Music Fest.
Material from the 2017 recording session at Sinewave Studio in Saskatchewan was mined for a limited release
7” in 2018. Cocaine Kangaroo is a rolicking live show favourite while Peyote Coyote is a trip into a bizarre
dimionsion. The deluxe edition includes a 4-song CD with all the tracks released from the session.
The spring of 2018 brought together an incredible meeting of like minds a generation apart. Psychedelic
journeyman Twink (Tomorrow, Pink Fairies, solo, etc. etc.) joined Moths & Locusts for for some live shows
playing songs from his classic recordings, like the recently re-released Think Pink, and a studio session to
record a collaborative album. The recording session was also attended by Canadian rock veteran Ian Blurton,
Barnaby Bennett, as well as cameos by members of Sloan and Wolf Parade. The album Think Pink IV - Return to
Deep Space is a multi-generational collaboration that crosses time and space and brings the best of many
worlds together with songs that range from the sprawling poetic strangeness of the opening track to hook-
laden rockers and luscious ballads.
2020 marks ten years since the first public performance of Moths & Locusts as an instrumental three-piece.
Exoplanets, the band’s latest full-length distills several years of studio recording sessions from rural
Vancouver Island to the canola fields of Saskatchewan and downtown Toronto into seven elemental songs that
reflect the band at the height of their power. The album's centerpiece is the near-16-minute long title
track. A forced hiatus from live shows thanks to the covid pandemic has led to a creative burst and a new
album’s worth of material is taking shape and likely to see light in 2021.