The Song:This instrumental is one of Beck's finest blues moments. It is a blues stomp, similar to the famous "Rollin' and Tumblin'" rhythm. Beck plays a mean slide guitar here—showing a near virtuosity on an instrument he hardly ever plays. (Though when he does, he's always great.) He accompanies himself with some of his coolest harmonica playing. It's hard to hype an instrumental jam that's under two minutes on an obscure soundtrack too much, but it really is a cool track!
And as for the title, what can I say? It's brilliant. I have not seen
Kill the Moonlight, but it very likely could be a reference to the film somehow. The description of the plot in the soundtrack's liner notes says the movie is about a laconic fishery worker. Beck's longtime friend, Steve Hanft, directed it and commissioned Beck to put a few songs on the soundtrack. These songs are much older than the 1997 cd-release... probably from 1993 or so.
Also, this movie is where "I'm a driver, I'm a winner...things are gonna change. I can feel it." comes from, which Beck would use as a sample on "
Loser." (The dialogue is included on the soundtrack as its own track.)