MusicByMBW will release its 21st album, Neon Shadows – Halloween 2026, on October 1, 2026 — a 15-track descent into a world where dark Delta blues, electronic music and classic literature meet after midnight.
The album brings together MusicByMBW founder, Mark Walton principal composer and lyricist, EDM Master, ELEXiX, and Cat Scratch Murphy n’ the Moon Dog Band, merging two very different musical worlds into something deliberately strange, atmospheric and difficult to classify.
Cat Scratch Murphy’s raw Delta blues — built around grit, temptation, sin, regret and the supernatural — collides with the cinematic electronic sound of ELEXiX. Acoustic blues traditions meet EDM production, distorted synths, deep bass, haunted textures and modern electronic rhythms. The result is Neon Shadows: music that feels at once old and futuristic, rural and urban, human and otherworldly.
But there is another layer.
Each of the album’s 15 songs is named for an author whose literary classic helped inspire the story, themes or imagery within that track.
MusicByMBW is deliberately not revealing which book belongs to which song.
Listeners are invited to enter the album as a literary puzzle: listen closely to the lyrics, characters, symbols and atmosphere, then try to determine which classic work inspired each composition.
Some connections may reveal themselves immediately. Others are buried more deeply in the shadows.
Across its 15 tracks, Neon Shadows – Halloween 2026 explores obsession, ambition, morality, monsters, transformation, madness, forbidden knowledge, temptation and the darker corners of human nature — themes that have haunted literature for centuries and remain just as potent beneath the neon lights of the modern world.
The project also represents one of MusicByMBW’s most ambitious collaborations to date, bringing together the distinctive musical identities of ELEXiX and Cat Scratch Murphy n’ the Moon Dog Band without asking either to surrender what makes them unique.
This isn’t Delta blues with an electronic beat added to it.
And it isn’t EDM dressed up for Halloween.
It is something that exists in the space between them.
Fifteen songs. Fifteen authors. Fifteen literary shadows.
Can you identify the stories hiding inside the music?
Neon Shadows – Halloween 2026, the 21st album from MusicByMBW, will be released October 1, 2026.
About MusicByMBW
MusicByMBW is an independent music project founded by composer and lyricist ELEXiX, exploring storytelling across genres through original music, characters, collaborations and concept-driven albums. Neon Shadows – Halloween 2026 marks the project’s 21st album release.