daymoon

"Daymoon is something very special on the progressive rock scene. This band knows the meaning of the words irony, they have a sense of humour and their leader Fred Lessing certainly knows how to write good and strong lyrics. They also share several characteristics with other high quality prog bands: the Daymoon musicians can play well, the compositions are intricate, well-structured, make use of the odd time signature, feature loads of acoustic and electric instruments and – as suspected – some unusual harmonic changes. Originally, the band started out as Fred on his own with a little help from friends from near and far, but eventually a true band developed featuring some of Portugal’s finest young – and perhaps not-quite-so-young-anymore – players that enable Fred Lessing’s truly personal music to live and breathe, very much like an unexpected but very welcome hot date."

"Daymoon started out in the early 80s as a Portuguese band called Dead Landscape, later (and more aptly) Por Ter Lido Mal O Mapa (For Having Misread The Map). Most of the band's music, written by Fred Lessing, was what is now loosely called 'progressive rock' - we called it symphonic rock. The 80s however had no room for that kind of music, and the band disbanded after a few fruitless years of battling against the mainstream. All band members except one moved into more commercial realms, such as Luso-American band Ithaka, and even as a support band for Portuguese muzak king Marco Paulo. Fred however, unwilling to sell his soul, kept on making fruitlessly regressive rock and worked hard selling his soul in a non-daymoon day job, until he eventually managed to assemble a reasonably functional home studio. Here he recorded 3 solo albums under the somewhat silly name 'Daymoon', this obviously being a witless semi-Grecian innuendo. Some of these albums included local musicians and, thanks to the Internet, musicians from all over the world. Unfortunately, none of these albums ever reached a finished stage, mostly because Fred wasn't taking his music too seriously.

2009 finally and unwittingly witnessed a proper Daymoon band emerging from the urban and suburban depths of Lisbon, featuring a bunch of gifted musicians. This all because they had helped recording the forthcoming Daymoon album All Tomorrows, which is currently being post-produced by Andy Tillison (The Tangent, PO90) and will be released soon. This will be followed en suite by yet another ridiculously ambitious Daymoon album, called Fabric of Space Divine, which has been in the making since 2002.

As to the music, Fred hastes to add that he is not a particularly expedient performer, but certainly a very poor singer, and therefore has no choice but to focus on composing and arranging the music that he writes. Furthermore he hastily hastens to say that his music is usually inconsistent to the utmost degree, this being a particular pleasure he derives from the filthy act of writing music. Fred's unfortunate band fellows are currently desperately waiting for their turn to bring in some proper and coherent music written by themselves."

Former & Present. Feel free to click wildly on the pictures below to read our egomaniac biographies