Formed in San Francisco in 2009 by Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and his partner, Sanae Yamada, MOON DUO’s first two critically acclaimed EPs, “Killing Time” (2009) and “Escape” (2010), fused the futuristic pylon hum and transistor reverb of Suicide or Silver Apples with the heat-haze fuzz of American rock ‘n’ roll to create tracks of blistering, 12-cylinder space rock. Now that the band has moved to the mountains of Colorado, it explores a far broader, lighter, sound, as made evident on their latest album, “Circles”.
Think Velvet Underground meets Spacemen 3, and you get a sloght idea of where the duo is heading sonically. Ripley says that, as a guitarist and songwriter, delineating between MOON DUO and Wooden Shijps “happens naturally. I focus on one project at a time, and the way the two bands operate is very different. And there are certain limitations that MOON DUO is forced to accept, not having a drummer for example, and I really like that. I like the creative challenge of working with limitations. Having done so much home recording cultivates that. Working with one other person is much different from working with four.”
As the name suggests, there might be some slight influence of the chill-wave movement in DAILY VACATION’s music.Thus, it was no surprise to see all songs created over the last 3 years by Jeff Zeimet, later with the contribution of Sebastien Laas and Mike Tock being revamped, if not re-recorded. Witha a little help from Cyclorama and former Metro bassist Yves Stephany aka Plastic Pedestrian in terms of drum recording and mixing processes, an album was born. This collaboration and the band’s very natural ability to combine lush electronic soundscapes with catchy garage riffing are mainly responsible for the sonic audacity heard on their latest album, “Yumaque” (Oct 2012).
Concert / Rock & Psychedelic Moon duo
