ALBUM: Moon Duo 'Shadow of the Sun'

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“Err, sort of if Neil Young joined Kraftwerk, or something… I suppose.” That was the rather embarrassed, shoe shuffling description Ripley Johnson offered of the Moon Duo sound in an early interview. His partner Sanae Yamada smiled awkwardly, tried to avoid eye contact and hoped the conversation would move on quickly.

It wasn’t meant as a grand, “We’re gonna be bigger than The Beatles” mission statement, although it did hint at the sonic collision of ’60s melodies, howling fuzz and primitive analogue electronics that has become their calling card. Five or so years, a bunch of EPs and two albums later, things have changed but everything’s the same. Ripley maintains the look (and beard) of a benign, hillbilly Charles Manson, his trusty Airline guitar still swirling and whirring in an ocean of feedback and effects, whilst Sanae’s synths twist from bubblegum Hammond organ lines into Suicide’s warped electro-punk sprawl. There is a slightly different feel and change in atmospherics to third album, Shadow of the Sun, though.

The San Franciscans were lost in the rural splendour of the Rocky Mountains, isolated with their own psychosis on last offering Circles (2012), this time they’ve been locked in a sweaty Portland basement with new drummer John Jeffrey. His addition has injected tempo and quickened that droning, hypnotic pulse, and opener ‘Wilding’ comes bursting out of the stalls, swinging and shimmying to an Austin Powers wig-out that soars into spacey bombast. The change in dynamic reasserts their garage-rock credentials and shifts the emphasis from the meditative, shoegazey throng of previous work, with ‘Free The Skull’ even descending into a warped Stooges-meets-Sun Ra freak jam.

This is cosmic stoner bliss from another planet. Whereas most psychedelic acts revel sun-kissed melodies and colourful, kaleidoscopic acid trips, Moon Duo gaze into the darkest night skies counting asteroids and talking to lunar gods. They sound like part of a CIA mind control experiment that would have been played whilst Cold War spies were strapped to a chair with their eyes pinned open and forced to watch television static for hours on end.

The distorted, hazy adventures soften to ambient, snake charming daydreams on ‘Thieves’ and ‘In A Cloud’, whilst they positively bring out the party streamers and shake their tailfeathers on happy clapping astro boogie ‘Slow Down Low’. The journey also takes in proto synth pioneers Silver Apples on throbbing electro-clash cyclone ‘Ice’, channels Devo’s DIY new wave surrealism on ‘Zero’ and suffers raging Krautrock hallucinations on album closer ‘Animal’. It‘s a near perfect prescription, that aligns Shadow of the Sun alongside Jason Pierce’s finest moments and leaves an indelible mark on the growing pysch-rock revival. Long may the trip continue.

Shadow Of The Sun is released on 3rd March via Sacred Bones Music.