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Rating:
I have always considered Moon Duo as Ripley Johnson's side project, something that could be a kind of diversion alongside the main project, that glorious band known as the Wooden Shjips, which here revived the same momentum, but with a more appealing aesthetic and an easier sound, less drone and at the same time much more 'indie'.
Naturally, it is not simply a matter of sound but of aesthetics. From this point of view, the Moon Duo formula, founded on the partnership between Ripley Johnson and his partner, keyboardist Sanae Yamada, has proven to be absolutely winning, and one could say that it has somehow achieved greater success over time among the public than the Wooden Shjips themselves.
We are not speaking, evidently, of a mass success, but certainly, Moon Duo has gone beyond the confines of the 'psychedelic genre' and its enthusiasts, who perhaps have partially distanced themselves over time from this project, which fundamentally is based on the following premises: rock and roll minimalism, 'motorik' structures, rich yet repetitive, even monotonous, sounds, and appealing use of synths.
Consequently, the discography of Moon Duo has grown exponentially over time, up to this year in which Johnson and Yamada have practically decided to release two albums focused on the same concept or rather on what are the typical two sides of the same coin.
Both made in partnership with longtime collaborator Jonas Verwijnen, 'Occult Architecture' is presented to us as a magnificent psychedelic work in two acts, taking as a conceptual reference the principles of Chinese philosophy that refer to the harmonious duality between light and shadow, Yin and Yang.
The first volume, released on Sacred Bones last February, would represent Yin, whose meaning would be 'the dark side of the hill' and associated as such with the concepts of femininity, darkness, night, earth. These are the subjects tackled by the album, deliberately released during the winter season, and which appears to us in this manner somehow monotonous and devoid of cosmic and emotionally charged hints full of light and positive energy.
Certainly, it is debatable to associate these types of characteristics with the concept of 'femininity'. Here depicted according to the clichés that suggest the female sex is somehow dark and tied to the night, thus 'feline' and possibly mysterious, but at the same time, in my simplicity as an admirer of the genre, I wonder how 'sectarian' and limiting this definition is, clearly linked to principles that are in some way only metaphorical and representative. Among these, probably, the link between women and in some ways considering 'occult' themes like sexual reproduction or the concept of 'earth' understood as 'fertility' and as such instinctively connected first and foremost to women.
Anyway, the album, as stated, lacks particular emotional hints and somehow presents itself as a rendition of sounds that refer to typically dark-wave periodicity, such as in the use of the rhythmic section that can remind of bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees or Bauhaus instead of the more typically kraut-rock experiences that are often considered a reference point for the band.
'The Death Set', the track that opens the album, is a typical example in this sense: the rhythmic section is absolutely minimal, what makes the difference – in this case – is the use of the sound of the guitars that extends enormously with an excessive and entirely unmeasured use of the phaser. Which then is a constant of the band and reappeared in the final ten minutes of 'White Rose, the concluding track that in some way constitutes a summation of the Moon Duo sound at this precise historical moment and with references in atmospheres back to what is a certain suburban culture of the eighties.
There is nothing particularly new in this album. 'Cold Fear', 'Cult Of Moloch' present that typical monotonous rock and roll even in the typical Moon Duo singing style; it goes better with 'Creepin', where greater vitality is noted in a kind of powerful and overwhelming progressive rock ride and with a finally convincing voice performance by Sanae Yamada; 'Cross-Town Fade', obsessive and frenetic like a late-hippie dance floor and with post-kraut frenzy; the easy-listening of 'Will of The Devil'...
In conclusion, I would not consider it an album full of particular insights and place it a step below the duo’s other discographic productions, also because some sound solutions in the use of guitars and synths are, in my opinion, somehow if not out of place, almost discordant: they alter the 'monotone' structure of the individual songs. Which is fine. But at this point, I would have preferred a clear choice, which evidently this duo does not propose to make because it is not a psychedelic group, nor a kraut-rock group, but now a true entity in the vast universe of 'indie' aesthetics.
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