Cape Town based psychedelic rock trio Moskitos release their debut album Mirage
Moskitos have marked their triumphant return with a highly anticipated debut album, MIRAGE, released via The Good Times Co. The Cape Town-based three-piece channels a visceral blend of garage rock grit and mind-bending psychedelia. Loosely conceptually inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, MIRAGE challenges listeners to question their perception of reality, pushing them to peel away layers of assumption, ego, and societal influence. At its core, the album asks: What’s real? And what’s merely a distorted reflection of the truth?
From the tension building “Umbra” reaching a thunderous fuzz-propelled zenith with untamed saxophone phrases, to the contemplative echoes of “Nothing” that fades into a wall of white noise, Moskitos take you on a raw, immersive sonic journey. The band’s sound—drawing on the frenetic energy of Thee Oh Sees, the fuzzed-out tones of Ty Segall, and the hypnotic pulse of The Black Angels—finds its most unfiltered form here. The band meaningfully abandons the polish and clean edges of earlier releases. Instead, MIRAGE embraces the raw, old-school garage rock spirit, recorded live in studio and soaked in fuzz, reverb, and the unpredictable energy of a band at the peak of their powers. The band's vocalist and guitarist, Pete Labuschagne, recalls “we wanted to capture the magic volatility and magnetic energy of playing new songs live without overthinking anything, so we dove in on the deep side and ended up recording the entire album within two or three days”.
