My Education, Moody Dipper EP

With 5 Popes, Texas drone rockers My Education wowed critics and won legions of fans with their spacey, Britrock-influenced songs. With their latest EP, the aptly titled Moody Dipper, the band hopes to gain even more exposure by riding the coattails of the some of instrumental rock’s best and brightest and including remixes by the likes of Red Sparowes, Dalek, Kinski, and Teith.

Fortunately for My Education, their three new tracks outweigh and overshadow the remixes. “Spirit of Peace” starts things off and is a good introduction to My Education’s melodic music. The song begins slowly and steadily builds into a dreamy jam reminiscent of Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed! You Black Emperor. The EP flows nicely into “Armistice Day,” a similarly structured — yet no less effective — song that mixes strings, a great drum beat, and willowy guitars. The final My Education original included on the EP is the title track, which follows in the same vein as all of the band’s music — swirling, shoegaze-y guitars and keyboards, feedback, and plenty of drone.

The rest of the songs on Moody Dipper are the aforementioned remixes, and while each interpretation is interesting, they all seem completely out of place here. The extra beats and faster rhythms cancel out the beauty inherent in My Education’s music. The Kinski remix of the band’s “Puppy Love” is the most listenable of the bunch, but even that song pales in comparison to the original. Some things just shouldn’t be touched.