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Review
Engulfing your listener in sound has often been likened to a wall of noise, but in Moon Duo's case it's more like a dome of sine waves, an aural planetarium. You can pick out constellations which sometimes form images of familiar things. But you sense that the guitarist of bellowing psychedelic band Wooden Shjips, Ripley Johnson, and his synth-playing partner Sanae Yamada are simply employing drones and minimal musicality to maximum effect, whether it imitates, evokes or accidentally stumbles upon anything else in rock history or not.
Their first two EPs, Killing Time from 2009 and Escape from 2010, were distinctly heady works which sounded more menacing and strung-out than their debut album, Mazes, does. Here Ripley plunders his own past works, oscillating force-fields plastered across organ-synth lines, relentless fuzz guitar and metronomic drum machines. Ripley's echoed, drawled vocals are almost inconsequential, noticeable most when they're no longer there.
The title-track's main riff, a relatively snappy, garage rock nod, smacks (weirdly) of The Futureheads' Favours For Favours if played by a 12-bar blues band, a total accident coming from hammering at an instrument so well utilised for decades. Here the oppressive weight of sound is dissipated and distributed throughout the song with elegant blues solos wreathed in phasers. When You Cut's keyboard vamp is vaguely reminiscent of Oneida's History's Greatest Navigators – never a bad thing – while Ripley grinds his molten tone underneath, a growling generator to drive the song into shimmering oases.
Though the construction is as simple and repetitive as anything by Ripley's other projects throughout, it's on Mazes that a relative lightness of touch – the chords not quite as forceful, the melodies not quite as embedded in the vortex – helps to make more of the playful side of drone rock. When the harshness is removed (and though we lose some of the incidental and fascinating harmonics and noises), there's enough of both sides of the band to print starlit patterns of sound upon your ears.
It's probably fair to say that the unexpected jauntiness at times, and the constant repetition, will not appeal to those who gravitate towards melodic hooks and on-a-dime time changes; each track is one massive hook with dynamics simply tossed aside in favour of volume and steadfastness. Each song remains a steady, stellar journey to the next piercing solo until the noise removes itself after a surprisingly brief 50 minutes and suddenly there's a big gaping black hole where Moon Duo were. All that remains is to re-listen.
--Brad Barrett
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Product Description
Wild 2011 album of propulsive beats 'n' acid-washed sonics from the San Fran psych prodigies! (links Wooden Shjips)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I first heard this playing before a Dean Wareham gig at XOYO in April. The repetitive rhythm and blissful effects laden guitar noodling refresh where other bands fail to reach. I can't stop playing it. Tracks Mazes, When You Cut and In The Sun are favourites. For me, it's the surefire album of the summer!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Making comparisons between Moon Duo and Wooden Shjips is practically inevitable considering the former is a side project of the latter. The distinction between the two was a very fine one with 2010's Escape - with Mazes the dividing line has become more defined. The gyrating riffing aesthetic is present on both, but the Duo seem to lift the not unpleasant fug of the Shjips and present something much lighter, more airy and generally less bong fuelled.
Allowing Moon Duo to embrace a pop sensibility, Sanae Yamada's keyboards are central to this distinction. Of course this is a swirling fractalised tie-dyed psychedelic garage awareness of pop's power, not the auto-tuned apocalypse of current chart pop, but the hook is as ingenious as anything on major play-lists. `Mazes', for example, is a sunshine bounce of a tune that has you humming within seconds and `When You Cut' catches you with its uncomplicated keyboard line before the fuzzed guitar begins to rise.
Mazes is a another brew of hallucinogenic goodness from Moon Duo.
Allowing Moon Duo to embrace a pop sensibility, Sanae Yamada's keyboards are central to this distinction. Of course this is a swirling fractalised tie-dyed psychedelic garage awareness of pop's power, not the auto-tuned apocalypse of current chart pop, but the hook is as ingenious as anything on major play-lists. `Mazes', for example, is a sunshine bounce of a tune that has you humming within seconds and `When You Cut' catches you with its uncomplicated keyboard line before the fuzzed guitar begins to rise.
Mazes is a another brew of hallucinogenic goodness from Moon Duo.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Bought this on a recommendation as I've recently got into more psych rock based music such as Black Angels, Wooden Shjips, BRMC, Warlocks, Tame Impala and others. Just listened to the album with a couple of pints of Everards Old Original (brewed in Leicestershire) and can say what a thoroughly enjoyable 40 odd minutes this is. If you like the bands I've mentioned this is definitely one for you. Most of the tracks chug along with that hazy, druggy beat that also catches you nodding with approval with plenty of hooks to grab your attention.
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