Mooey Moobau is the name of the voice- and word-heavy music project started by Joe Tepperman in 2007. His phonetic songs are ruled by natural speech rhythms and melodies, and he spouts them with an abandon that recalls Patti Smith as much as it does Public Enemy. Drawing on his own research work in applied linguistics, Mooey Moobau uses jagged voice collage on recordings and live tape edits at shows, backed up by a constantly shifting lineup of serious improviser friends from Los Angeles. The sound is frenetic, maximally detailed, and always thick with spontaneous interplay. The first Mooey Moobau album, All Murmur of Our Mothers' Waters, was released on Ebola Music Records in August 2008. Most of the songs on it seem to celebrate a frustration with the physical world. The lyrics are full of sick joy in distrusting everyday things and in overanalyzing innocent deaths - they detail at least two decapitated pigeons, a fallen bee, a dried-up houseplant, and one suffocated mouse. How an album like this avoided being gloomy, ponderous, or trivially cute is not easy to say. Maybe by recklessly embracing all the potential ammunition to be found in the physical limitations that are the source of the frustration - as though to break through language by stuttering, or to move beyond music by keeping perfect mistakes in the final mix. Among the many guests who played nothing but right notes on All Murmur are members of noise-jazz collective Killsonic and old-world dance party champions Cat Hair Ensemble, multi-reed monster Vinny Golia, and songwriter monoliths Dorian Wood, Archbishop Jason Polland, and Adam Rabin (Mailbox). "Mooey Moobau somehow flips ideas completely upside down, convincing you that your legs are your arms, floors are trap doors, and everything becomes sewer food. His unconventional instrumentations are so varied that you wonder how it’s all done; multiple voice clusters, wandering pianos, floating harps… then he hits you with broken-beat drums, electrified upright bass with frantic horn lines that push you, pull you, and will keep you teetering on the edge of audio sensory overload and leave you dumbfounded and smiling. This crazy fucker is brimming with the spirit of Captain Beefheart." -Citizen L.A., April 2008