Moon Duo - Occult Architecture Vol. 1

The Quietus

“We dig repetition / We dig repetition / We dig repetition in the music / And we're never going to lose it / All you daughters and sons / Who are sick of fancy music / We dig repetition / Repetition in the drums / And we're never going to lose it / This is the three R's / The three R's / Repetition, repetition, repetition”

Repetition: the most underrated of musical virtues, as Mark E Smith so sagely observed in The Fall’s 1979 song of the same name. It’s a mantra that Erik ‘Ripley’ Johnson (guitars, vocals) and Sanae Yamada (keyboards, vocals) have taken earnestly to heart in their collective guise as Moon Duo. Their music is invariably (and I choose that word deliberately) underpinned by galloping motorik beats, the same rhythmic device that has metaphorically and literally conveyed locomotion from Elvis Presley’s ‘Mystery Train’ to Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans Europe Express’ and beyond.

Moon Duo’s music is full of contradictions. Simultaneously repetitious but constantly evolving; rigid yet loosely structured; focused but blurry; mesmeric yet meandering towards an inexorable conclusion. Lulling the listener into a sense of familiarity with their minimalist rhythms, their musical excursions subliminally lead us astray from the starting point, gently (or not so gently) diverting our attention on a circuitous journey into unknown pleasures, each step taking us towards the nirvana of release (or is it relief?). Or, as they might prefer to put it, cosmic karma.

Whatever you care to call it, and it goes without saying that labels are simultaneously simplistic and trite while being a useful shorthand for the uninitiated, Moon Duo’s psychedelic krautrock space jams offer more than mere entertainment; their almost physical relentlessness and swirling depths dispense some sort of cerebral, if not spiritual, nourishment. Written and recorded in their adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon, Occult Architecture Vol.1 is the duo’s fourth album and the first part of a conceptual psychedelic opus in two volumes (the second to follow later this year) inspired by both their environment - rainclouds and sunshine and “the deep creep” of the Northwest forests - and writers of English occult literature like Aleister Crowley and Mary Anne Atwood, Colin Wilson and Manly P. Hall. It is, they say, “an intricately woven hymn to the invisible structures found in the cycle of seasons and the journey of day into night, dark into light through the Chinese theory of Yin and Yang”. Vol.1 represents the Yin, (which in Chinese means “the shady side of the hill”) and embodies Moon Duo’s darker qualities: hence its release in the heart of our winter.

It also represents a shift, if not in sound, but in perspective and emphasis. It’s their first album to be recorded as a trio following the addition of tour drummer John Jeffrey, whose contribution – with a metronomic style that often imitates a drum machine in the style of the recently deceased Can maestro Jaki Liebezeit - lends a more organic feel to the relentless percussion that drives their songs. At the same time, Yamada’s synthesisers and keyboards come more to the fore, with the duo sharing vocals both separately and together. Despite the similarities, for the first time, Moon Duo seems less like a side project from Johnson’s other band Wooden Shjips and more like an entity in its own right.

The album divides naturally into two halves, the first focusing on more conventional minimalist constructions embodied by the almost Cramps-like rolling rhythm of opener ‘The Death Set’, whose structure dissolves as Johnson’s guitar solo fades and he recites the incantation “There’s a sound in my head” over and over again; and the stark synth and percussive slaps of ‘Cold Fear’, a song whose stark synthesisers, stuttering vocals and cloak of distortion suggest the paranoia and anxiety of Suicide. The highlight of the first half is ‘Cross-Town Fade’, whose urgent propulsion and monstrously distorted solo - the same combination of tightly-woven rhythms and free-form guitar playing pioneered by The Feelies on their 1980 debut Crazy Rhythms - incorporate mind-bendingly off-kilter piano notes emerging from a maelstrom of industrial noise; by the end of its eight minutes they sound like nothing so much as an aeroplane preparing for take-off, the cacophony causing the same sense of stomach-churning anticipation in the passenger/listener.

The second half opens with ‘Cult of Moloch’, a song not only titled like an occult metal anthem but proving to be something of a headbanger: constructed around the most basic of riffs, it disintegrates satisfyingly with muddy vocals, treated piano and a guitar that sounds as if it’s being played underwater. ‘Will of the Devil’, conversely (despite another metal-friendly title) veers almost into the realms of synth-pop, its pretty keyboards and drowsy vocals bludgeoned by a reverb-heavy beat reminiscent of goth forebears like Sisters of Mercy and The Cult. But the pièce de résistance is the closing ‘White Rose’, a ten-minute epic that opens with a gust of wind and an almost liquid guitar, the notes bending and swaying around a simple four-note piano melody, embellished by synth textures and squalls of distorted guitar before dropping out like a dub production until the percussion fades away to leave silence apart from the wind... and anticipation for an imminent Volume 2.

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Drowned In Sound 90

The first in a projected two-part release, Occult Architecture Vol. 1 is – as it title comfortably suggests – a meditation on the synthesis of arcane exterior influence with methodical, human machination. Stemming from the 'hidden energies of rainclouds and sunshine and the deep creep of Northwest forests along with their effect on the psyche', it’s a release intrinsically rooted in the potent sway of the natural world and the hidden processes that bind it all together. Like holding a prism up to the last burning rays of the dying sun, Moon Duo re-present their reverb-heavy psych miasma as a feature-length prayer to the cycle of the seasons and the route of day into night; dark into light.

A band that have always intuitively embraced the idea that minimalism is akin to maximalism, here Moon Duo take Peter Kember of Spacemen 3's shrewd mantra of 'Three chords good, two chords better, one chord best', douse it in a brume of fuzz-soaked textures and spooked synths before sending it on its way via a steady heft of hypnotic electro-acoustic beats courtesy of the band's regular tour drummer John Jeffrey. From opener ‘The Death Set’ – a blissed-out opening gambit emboldened with fist-clenched, Numanesque swagger – and lead single ‘Creepin’’ to masterfully foreboding highlight ‘Cross-Town Fade’ and slow-burning, ten-minute flame-out ‘White Rose’, layered permutations and Johnson’s oracular incantations – largely inspired by the writing of Mary Anne Atwood, Aleister Crowley, Colin Wilson, and Manly P. Hall – meld to form a nebulous dimension where glorious repetition sits at the root of it all. As with its predecessor, 2015’s Shadow of the Sun, the almost imperceptible shifts aligned here are real testament to the deceptive complexity of Moon Duo’s process.

With its counterpart set for release later in the year, Vol. 1 represents the 'Yin' – the dark energy, the winter – of the duality being tackled here. And sure enough, with tracks like ‘Cold Fear’, ‘Cult of Moloch’ and ‘Will of the Devil’ coursing forth with a squall of dreaded tones and harbingering lyrical refrains, this is a record that, rather than personifying the expectant inner surge that accompanies daybreak (that’ll surely be left to Vol. 2) yields to the dark energy of a transporting, heavy dusk. And viewed through the lens of an increasingly precarious natural world, not least in recent legislative attempts to quell the advances of necessary environmentalism, Occult Architecture Vol. 1 makes for a sorcerous entreaty to dig that little bit deeper when weighing up the relationship – and clearly quite inspiring power – of the inner world and the outer realm. Here’s hoping the second installment delivers just as forcefully.

Pitchfork 71

Four albums deep, Moon Duo have grown somewhat predictable. The collaboration of Wooden Shijps’ guitar-warlock Ripley Johnson and keyboardist Sanae Yamada has always been built on a steady but enjoyable mix of elements: corroded guitars, loopy keyboard lines, krautrock rhythms, and psychedelic strains conjuring both the whirling cosmos and droning abyss. Their new album Occult Architecture Vol. 1 does little to alter the formula, but the key to Moon Duo records has always been the strength of the compositions. And those already onboard with the band won’t be disappointed by the seven tracks here.

Touted as representing the depths and changes of the seasons, Occult Architecture Vol. 1 delves into the bleaker corners of winter and allows Moon Duo to indulge their most sinister tendencies. Like many a great Moon Duo song, opener “The Death Set” is at once swaggering, sexy, and foreboding. Much of their music is low-key cinematic; it’s hard to hear “The Death Set”’s distorted, slow-motion whoosh or its bone-rattling beat and not imagine a character’s dramatic entrance into an unnerving nightclub. Elsewhere, like on “Cold Fear” and “Will of the Devil,” they use queasy electronic textures to flirt with gothier territory.

Well past the lower-fi nature of their earliest work, Moon Duo still don’t operate with a ton of dynamic range. But they use those heart-palpitating rhythms and lacerating keyboard lines to build blown-out, end-times epics littered with subtle twists. Johnson’s death-drive guitars propel “Cult of Moloch” forward unwaveringly, but interjections of synth and a second, spiraling guitar part make the song feel like it’s reaching for spiritual corners of nature. Closer “White Rose”—one long synth ride—has a similar effect, winding down a road into the distance. Moon Duo haven’t gone full-on mystic, however; the new album maintains the steely grit of its predecessor, Shadow of the Sun. Theirs is music still meant for barreling down desert highways in a stolen car, or for the grind and smog of a third-tier industrial city.

That said, Moon Duo isn’t the kind of group to make albums with literal thematic angles. Their style has limits, but discernibility is maybe not the point. Moon Duo’s precise mix of traditions and sounds conjures a nihilistic cool, an image of leather-jacketed outlaws chain-smoking in dark alleyways in seedy cities. Occult Architecture Vol. 1 is a good record that’s at its best when Moon Duo fully give in to these seductive inklings, like on “The Death Set” or “Creepin.’” Sure, we’ve heard the riff from “Creepin'” before, but it’s nice to hear it again.