Tune On The Moon: UK Indie Rock Band Into The Red To Have Their Single ‘Take Me To The Water on the Moon’ Touch Down On The Moon This July

It’s not every day that a song gets sent to space.

British alternative rock band Into the Red is able to flaunt these interstellar bragging rights, however, seeing as their appropriately-titled single “Take Me to the Water on the Moon” is doing just that.

After NASA announced that water had been found on the moon’s surface last year, and a contest to fill digital space on an SD card that would be included on a launch to the site was published, Into the Red decided to name one of their songs after the journey and ended up winning, as announced by the BBC. The spacecraft, Peregrine Lunar Lander, is scheduled to touch down in July.

The single appears on the Sheffield-based four-piece band’s April 2nd EP Wavelength, an assortment of four tracks equally as stellar.

Opening track, “The Nearest Earth-Like Star,” sets the tone with a thick atmosphere built of layered vocals against an anticipatory signal-like synth and suspenseful strumming electric guitar. It is followed by the interstellar-bound, “Take Me to the Water on the Moon,” which tells a story of struggling with sobriety in an unexpectedly fun, lively way unique to their vein of rock music.

Next is “A Letter I’ll Never Send to You,” which takes a break from such an inward, depressed focus to address and acknowledge the heartbreaker. To close out the EP, “Waves are Crashing Against Me (Deepest Shade of Blue)” features a deceptively bright looping riff that camouflages dark lyrics such as “I climbed up to the rafters, and plunged into the depths.” The song ends with a minute-long outro of ambient noises that further contribute to the science-fiction world the collection lives in.

With such a consistent theme of science and nature, it is somewhat surprising that previous singles “Lunar” and “Bonfire” were not included on the EP. The pair, which both dropped in 2019, bridge Into the Red’s 2016 debut Frequency to the current release.

Though the band has been together for over six years, lead singer and guitarist Logan MacDonald only started higher education studying music at the University of Sheffield this past year. His studies have ranged from performance to world music history, and have been helpful in his own compositions, as he writes most of the band’s music. He is joined by bassist Callum Mitchell, drummer Ashley Martindale, and fellow guitarist Josh Douglass to complete the quartet.

As Mitchell told local paper The Star, “It’s really cool to be able to say our song’s going to the Moon.” We would have to agree.