Sleepwalker

 

A couple of weeks ago I featured the new release by Psychic Ill at this place. It was not really a new album because it was the start of a new series of releases featuring bands playing on live at Austin Psych Fest (or Levitation as it was named later). This event started as a one day festival back in 2008 and expanded to a tree day event the following year. This series captures key moments in psychedelic rock history and live music in Austin. New latest release of this series features live appearances by the beautiful Moon Duo from 2012/2014. Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada were on a high level at this time and show how great psychedelic music could be played by a small band. There are live highlights from their early recordings on it and I feel sad that I never had a chance to see them live.

Moon Duo - Sleepwalker

Moon Duo - Goners

In The Sun

 

Yesterday I posted a long song by Psychic Ill and I remembered them when I read the news of a new series of albums released as Live At Leviation. It is a series about live recordings of the annual Austin Psych Fest. It seems like a series of live albums bringing back the best of American psychedelic music to our ears. Psychic Ill released a live album as well as Moon Duo from their appearance in 2012. Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada formed their band in San Francisco in 2009 to make a dusty, dirty and psychedelic guitar sound, minimalist rhythms and melodies, deliberately broken sounds and constant repetitions make up the sound. On stage Moon Duo make noise for five bands. Ripley nuzzles into the mic, playing down his fuzzy riffs, while Yamada feeds in flirty synthies and keyboard tunes. The drum computer works continuously without a break. You might think the two live in a different world. Or on the moon. This live recording seems to show them at a high leverl.

Earth Trip

 

Last week the new album by Rose City Band arrived at my home. Ripley Johnson's side project beside of Mood Duo and Wooden Shjips captivates me every time I listen to it. Even if you're not into Americana or desert music his pearling guitar licks makes you feel like you arrived at a common place. Earth Trip is similar to the other albums and present nothing new or groundbreaking - just a kind of music you can listen to at a campfire close to the beach. You might call it retro but I love this music right now for a start into a new era after hard days of social distances. 

Monday's Long Song

Something I never expected was the latest release by Moon Duo. San Francisco's fantastic psychedelic band went back to 1970 to cover Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan. It is their contribution to Sacred Bones Record sampler to pay tribute to Black Sabbath's second album Paranoid.

Monday's Long Song

In these slowed down times I take a walk back to more relaxed sounds. The good thing in having no hurry or appointments is that I can grab out albums I didn't play for longer time. Under this condition it is no coincidence that I listened to Moon Duo once again. I always had a huge affection to them and their spaced out psychedelic sound and I can't remember that Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada did any worse song. Crystal World is from their 2017 album Occult Architectures Vol. 2 and superb in its hypnotic groove.

Moon Duo - Crystal World

Grateful Dead Again

I never thought that a new band continues the work of Grateful Dead everybody's hippie dream but the first album by Rose City Band taught me that I was wrong. Not that they copy their sound - it is a bit more. Eric 'Ripley' Johnson, member of the majestic Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo played and produced their first self titled album and that makes the difference to many other country inspired bands. Besides, Rose City Band work like cosmic crawlers which stand in a psychedelic scabbard way. A sort of country-psych-vibe into which ethereal guitars flow and interweave themselves mutually to create a perfect balance between here and now. Many musicians from Portland come with pleasure especially actively on the psychotropic way – and interweaving and welding with country-, worldbeat -or folk-based sound patterns. Johnson and his allegiance lie also completely in this tradition. And I really love their space-blues-country with wonderful loops. A music to relax and feel harm and I am sure I will listen often to them.

This Years List 1/15

Working year is almost over and in a few days I will go for a four week vacation to Sri Lanka again. Visiting the places I used to stay during the last years over Christmas and new years time and exploring places I haven't been yet. So you won't have any actual posts until mid of January 2016. During the last weeks I summed up the albums that was released this year and chosen 15 from 2015. It is a very personal selection by records that impressed me much, that accompanied me this year or I listened to often the recent months. This list will not be a valuation of the best records this year, it's just a personal review of albums that stood the test of time for this year. I am not the one that requires that the list is universally valid - it is more a retrospective of albums that was released in 2015 and I still listen to them since I first got my attention and I still listen to them. So in the nearby days I will introduce to you my albums of the year. Be curious what will happen the next days.


A record Julian Cope would love comes from San Francisco based Moon Duo. Guitarist Ripley Johnson and keyboardist Sanae Yamada released Shadow of the Sun early this year. Nine songs with real psychedelia in it. Songs with distorted guitars, weird organ sound and a voices deeply halled. What them make more than an Haight-Ashbury cover is that they have a lot of elements of proto-punk and Krautrock in their sound that makes their sound unique. This records shimmers through many outputs this year and will surely played at my house more times.