LIMB Returns with a 15-Minute Banger
LIMB. Photo: Jason Smith
For the last two years I’ve been telling people that right now is the most prolific time in Houston’s music scene. I’m never short of acts to jam to, because it seems like there’s something new dropping at every turn. Possibly one of the best musicians in Houston is LIMB. I’ve often referred to LIMB as a wizard, if not because he’s one of only two Houston musicians with a TED Talk, he built an instrument from PVC and a ceiling fan, and aside from seeing him perform in the bathroom at Walters or performing in the nude recently, his live sets are truly something ahead of the curve. In typical LIMB fashion, the track he shared exclusively with FPH is like nothing else you’ve ever heard.
The track, “Apollo 13: A Literal and Figurative Depiction of The Mission’s Trajectory,” stands apart if not only based on the fact that it’s almost fifteen minutes long. To be fair, the first five and a half minutes are the track itself, followed by the actual transmission from the flight recorders attached. Away from the transmission, the song finds LIMB experimenting with a dance heavy vibe that he hasn’t really gotten into in the past. Turning a handful of words into a banger of a track might be difficult for any other producer, but as it’s displayed here, the Houston producer has no problem dropping almost PC Music inspired synths, spaced out sounds, and a beat that sticks in your head well after the first listen.
As per his own words, “Apollo 13 is both a literal depiction of the mission’s full trajectory from take off into emergency landing, and a figurative telling of the same event as an entwined, love triangle between astronaut, earth and moon.
“You are now so abruptly alone and afraid. You are struggling with the truth that the object of your greatest desires, a love that has been growing inside you for most of your adult life, the moon, will never be yours. You may also die. You will want, so badly, to feel the comfort of shutting this truth out and retreating home, but you can’t. You won’t even have the pleasure of time to heal this pain. Instead, in the span of just a moment you will need to come to terms with a new truth; that you will need the moon to get you there. You will need it’s gravitational pull to send you accelerating back towards earth. It will hurt you very much to have to experience this, to be only close enough, but it will also be instrumental for growth, security, and actual love. It will slingshot you back into a life that lies both ahead of and behind you, with a new found sense of what longing, commitment, and love can be. You will not know this right away. Not even after you land will this make perfect sense to you. The moon will always pull at you. Every night it will remind you that it is there and always. But every night this pain will reside and love, real love, for your home will begin to grow.”
The track, found exclusively here, is just another stitch in the ever weaving fabric in which the elusive producer and performer cloaks himself in. While we wait for the three projects that LIMB has in store for release this year, give this song a spin and then get down to the figurative love triangle between astronaut, earth and moon.
