Six Picks gets moonal this week, in honour of the supermoon. Did you see it? Super, wasn’t it.

Neil Young - Harvest Moon

Not only was it super, it was the closest full moon to the Autumn equinox (in the Northern hemisphere), making it a harvest moon as well.

https://youtu.be/n2MtEsrcTTs

Belly - Low Red Moon

We’re a superstitious, irrational bunch, us humans. The Romans thought staring at the moon could make you go crazy (hence lunatic), and a red moon has been widely interpreted through the ages as a sign of impending doom. But now we have science, so everything’s ok.

https://youtu.be/JJgucSSCwtM

The Walkmen - Red Moon

See above. It’s just light, or particles, or somesuch making it that colour.

https://youtu.be/7F695zEGgWc

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

There’s more than a little bit of Autumnal staring at the sky and wondering why on Pink Moon, Nick Drake’s third and final studio album. Lyrics of fear and uncertainty litter the album, mingled with autumnal references. Neither bucolic nor pastoral, the album conjures a woodland floor, teeming with lives free and unburdened that Nick could not imagine for himself.

I saw it written and I saw it say

Pink moon is on its way

And none of you stand so tall

Pink moon gonna get you all

https://youtu.be/qgVEvjsJn6g

Peter Bruntnell - Orange Moon

There’s a good chance you’re not all that familiar with Peter Bruntnell’s sweetly beautiful music. If you like Orange Moon and its hints of the melancholic Americana of the likes of The Pernice Brothers, then a good way to start your collection would be with the 2005 album Ghost in a Spitfire that it appears on.

https://youtu.be/0Wi7e5_-gLU

Salako - The Moon Radiates a Purple Glow in his World

Salako were a typically charming Jeepster records ’90s signing. Unlike Belle and Sebastian - another band that fits that description - they did not enjoy a meteoric rise, and are probably best known among fans of that band who dabbled in the rest of the Jeepster roster. As the label’s website explains:

Nobody passes through Hull. The town lies at the end of an unmodernised branch line that, travelling from London, involves changing at Doncaster and boarding a rickety train service going by the name of Northern Spirit.

It’s fitting enough that this out-on-a-limb-town has given birth to the self-contained, idiosyncratic music of Salako. In the 20 months since they released their first single on Jeepster, this group has unleashed over 60 songs onto the world, all recorded in Luke’s bedroom (except, that is, the ones that were recorded at the beach or the newsagents).

https://youtu.be/Xcje4eNJy6g