Moist is five musicians, cloaked in an air of uncertainty, a healthy dose of self doubt, several thousand pounds of gear and flashing lights, a large supply of antidepressants, two cases of neo citron, and a disembodied voice with a British accent that never seems to tire of berating the mounds of technology that surround it with the kind of vigor and righteous anger that would make even the meanest boot camp drill sergeant on earth sink to his knees in slack jawed awe, take notes and weep in shame, all packed into a small, dark, airless room chewing their collective nails, second guessing anyone foolish enough to have a dissenting opinion, and playing a seemingly endless game of "I'll show you my inner demons and hapless self loathing if you'll show me yours", while summer in all its rich sun dappled pageantry passes us by with nary a glance or a spare beam of sunlight to cast into the pit we've gladly dug for ourselves. Roll tape. Mind you were not complaining were just shaking off the dust and frustration that's accumulated over the past 12 months while we've been hiding in various darkened rooms writing new material, throwing it away, reworking it, throwing it away, taking isolated bits and pieces from six or seven song ideas and frankensteining them together in an ill advised and hideous mockery of a song, listening, staring at each other vacantly, throwing it all away, etc..... As to where we've been, what we've been doing why you haven't heard from us and what it all means, well... Moist put a symbolic end to three years of touring in September of 95 after the whole labour day in tuktoyaktuk with Metallica and Hole thing and have spent the majority of this past year (with the exception of several mini tours/transparent money grabs) in quiet contemplation peppered liberally with the odd blind, mind shriveling bender which leaves us asking the age old musical question "what am I doing waking up in the ym/ywca at nine am wearing a fur lined mumu and where did I get this tremendous hole in my head". In mid-September and for the first time in three years the band rented apartments in Vancouver as vain attempt to rediscover their personal lives. For some of us this required...adjustment. After two weeks of grotty linen and sudsless showers it occured to us that fresh soap and towels no longer appear magically each day along side our morning paper, and BCtel operators take a decidedly dim view of people who call repeatedly in an attempt to order room service and set multiple wake up calls. We did settle in eventually, much to the relief of my downstairs neighbours who seem to have grown a wee bit tired of me showing up in thier kitchen at 8:30 every morning petulantly demanding immediate access to the breakfast buffet and ranting incoherently about the value of quality service. Having little patience or liking for stability, joy, peace, quiet, good living, and regular hours, Moist decided (in mid bender naturally) that late December would be the perfect time to relocate to Montreal, slog through three feet of snow in sub-zero weather, desparately looking for new apartments and exploring the time that lies between two and four a.m. more thoroughly. Challenged and inspired by the possibilities presented by a new city, new language, a civilized 3a.m. last call, and triple fermented beer (gleefully endorsed by the devil himself) we threw ourselves into final writing and preproduction for our second album. Five obsessive, fun filled months later we began recording with producer Paul Northfield at Le Studio Morin Heights and Silent Sound in Montreal. And so they recorded... Our second album, CREATURE, is the product of this union and several months of pain staking soul searching shot through with a quantity of self obsession so great that we felt it necessary to share it equally with our producer, our record company, our families, our friends and any poor unsuspecting soul who stopped us on the street to ask when the new album was coming out. It involved the renting of many typically unpredictable bits of technology and the creation of five sets of several thousand constantly changing and thoroughly meaningless lists compiled as a result of hours of redundant life sucking and rarely accurate speculation. and will be yours to experience, sans pain and suffering October 1st, 1996. Actually it wasn't all that bad. It just took a little longer to record than our first album so there is no need to send flowers and get well cards just now... However, this puts us in mind of an interesting point. Jeff. Jeff is not sick. Jeff is well. He had the flu. In early 95. It lasted a week and a half. It's gone now. CUT THE SYMPATHY. Thanks for your concern, but enough already. He's beginning to get all frail and paranoid about being sickly and that bothers the rest of us... Immensely - unless its our doing... and besides, why should Jeff get all the pity and all the get well cards, just for being the biological equivalent of a four star hotel for pestilence. What does David get when he's sick? A couple of good swift boots to the spleen from a giddy and vindictive guitar player. And Kevin? How about the usual "your not sick, you're faking!! stop resting! entertain me!". And Paul? Well... Paul gets even. Incidentally, Mark doesn't get sick. He is so impossibly slow that any passing virus that comes within sneezing distance of him is immediately stricken by an overwhelming fear of commitment and buggers off in search of someone with a faster metabolism. And while we are here...in response to a recent letter from a writer who expressed disappointment that we didn't respond personally to a thirty page "I love you, I hate you, I hate to love you, here's a list of everyone I would like to kill and why and by the way shouldn't you guys be taking more time out from writing, touring, and recording to develop a truly intimate relationship with some of your more unbalanced fans?" ...Hello...I'm sorry...I'd just love to sit down and pore over your grisly obsessions one by one...By all means. Lets do lunch, tea and crumpets...Let's hold hands and skip through a landscape of bitterness and frustration with big happy smiles, inwardly sneering at other passers by...And maybe later we can escape into the late showing of "Free Willy 3-My Dinner with Ahab" before sinking back into the malignancy and torture of modern urban life. Uh huh, right. I'd rather spend some quality time with the voices screaming in my head. Okay?

APOLOGIES AND PENITENT SUPPLICATION DEPARTMENT