Circles

Such an incredible work of art from this band. Quality!!

A fantastic psych zone out album! Highly recommended.

Great music for a revisit to psych rock with a clear sound. It's a nice change from the imitation stuff heard on the radio. It's not for everyone especially the folks who like country

If you're familiar with Erik "Ripley" Johnson's main band Wooden Shjips, then getting to know his side band Moon Duo will come very naturally. They occupy that same space as Wooden Shjips; kraut rock sensibilities, fuzzed-out garage rock spirit, and spacey, drone-fueled mantras that float along like the haze at a Brian Jonestown Massacre gig. If, on the other hand you're not familiar with Wooden Shjips, then sit back and enjoy the psychedelic ride Moon Duo are about to take you on.Moon Duo consists of Erik "Ripley" Johnson and Sanae Yamada, and with the help of some isolation in the Colorado Rockies, their newest album Circles is both a testament to fuzzed-out psych pop and to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay of the same name. Album opener `Sleepwalkers' has that Wooden Shjips guitar growl, but a great programmed drum beat. Shipley's delayed vocal moves along well with the catchy groove. It's menacing and inviting at the same time. `I Can See' is a driving, dark pop song. A great mix of synth noise, a bass line that propels the track and Shipley's vocals sounding like he's travelling through space and time with his magic hookah. Strangely en0ugh, I could totally hear The Cars doing this song back in 1979 for some reason. `Circles' sounds like Kurt Vile jamming with Wooden Shjips. Johnson has that sleepy quality to his voice that brings to mind Vile. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club comes to mind as well. Dark, psychedelic pop at its finest.These are songs that could have very easily been digested by the Wooden Shjips collective, but would have somehow been less interesting. Johnson seems more upbeat on Moon Duo tracks. He's not hiding behind a wall of fuzz and drone. There's still plenty of both on Moon Duo tracks, but they're distilled and refined down to their essence. He follows a pop sensibility on these songs that at times is lacking on Wooden Shjips records. That's not to say there's something wrong with rambling and spaced-out jams. On the contrary, Wooden Shjips makes it look easy, when in fact it takes a great deal of panache and skill to pull off the kind of spacey noodling they do so well. Once in a while though, it's nice to get right to the point. Moon Duo do that in spades on Circles. A song like `Sparks' gets to the point. It has a great fuzzed-out guitar solo and a riff that ZZ Top would've gladly spat out of their Marshalls back in 1972. It's kinda sexy, kinda dark, and catchy as hell. `Rolling Out' is the last song and most reminiscent of Johnson's day job gig. At nearly 7 minutes it's a great way to end an already great album.If you've been a fan of Wooden Shjips, then you will certainly be a fan of Moon Duo's Circles. If you're new to the fold, give Circles a listen. It's a trippy, psych-out, noise pop ride.

All the essential elements of psych rock are here: fuzzed out guitars that drench the background with noise. Repetitive bass and drum parts that lay down a groove so thick it creates ruts in the ground. Muffled vocals that make understanding the lyrics near impossible. And finally, as is especially the case with any band featuring Erik Ripley Johnson, lengthy and memorable guitar solos that push each song to greater heights. What Moon Duo's latest release "Circles" gives the listener that pushes it into slightly more, shall we say friendly, territory is a series of bass riffs and dare I say hooks that engage and compel the listener almost immediately. Opening track "Sleepwalker", as fuzzed filled as they come, verges on being danceable thanks to its upbeat rhythm section. "I Can See" conjures up images of go-go dancers and a dance hall with a colored liquid light show running in the background. "Dance Part 3" may have lifted the drum intro from the Rolling Stones "Harlem Shuffle" before heading off into deep guitar chugging territory. And album closer "Rolling Out" wraps things up with three plus minutes of squealing guitar soloing that is not too far removed from a Jefferson Airplane late '60s Fillmore freak out. Simply put, this is one of the more accessible psych rock albums you will find. Without sacrificing their musical integrity or in any way capitulating on the amount of drone and noise they are willing to put out there, Moon Duo's latest gives the listener a complete psychedelic rock experience complete with catchy bass lines and a couple of memorable hooks. A must own for psych rock fans.

3rd album from San Francisco duo featuring Erik Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips notoriety. This is top-of-the-heap psychedelic garage-drone rock, where some brilliantly trippy lead guitar over repetitive keyboard Krautrocking rhythms creates a smoky, hypnotic rock atmosphere peppered with poppy beats, and the mystery of why ghosts might be dancing in hazy opium dens. The occasional energy of post-punk/Stoner rock furnishes a vibrant, semi-heavy aura that is adeptly tempered by the perpetual loping accessibility of the beat and Johnson's beautifully twisted, Eastern-tinged, mesmerizing guitar. There is a strange combination of influences at work here. The guitar work (not the album, in general) recalls Jimi Hendrix, Mick Hutchinson (Clark-Hutchinson Band), Tom Verlaine (Television), Terry Swope (JPT Scare Band), John Cippolina (Quicksilver Messenger Service). The rhythms sometimes recall Neu, B-52s, Velvet Underground. Overall, the band sounds like a combination of the Black Angels, the Cramps, Suicide, Disappears & Audionom that often comes out better than the individual components. This is simply a great album, built on the juxtaposition of comfortable, repetitive simplicity and some stunning lead guitar work that rocks! (Note: This is essentially the same review that I wrote for their 2011 album "Mazes". "Circles" hasn't had a chance to grow with me yet, but so far it feels very similar, if a bit more of a straightforward "rock" album.)

If Jefferson Airplane formed today and added some grunge, they might sound like this. Great sonic wall of sounds from San Francisco.

Great Vinyl Thanks

First class CD

Ottimo album per questo duo californiano farcito di fuzz, psichedelia e distorsioni che vi tracinera' dal primo all'ultimo minuto, impossibile non ballare!!!! Ascoltare per credere.Super consigliato agli amanti del kraut-rock, dello space-rock e della psichedelia non oppressiva ma solare e divertente in puro stile californiano!Da inserire di diritto nella top ten dei migliori album del 2012.Da avere assolutamente nella propria collezione di dischi e rigorosamente in formato VINILE.

J'ai découvert Moon Duo dans une compilation du journal Mojo, sur les groupes neo psychédéliques, Tame Impala en tête.Disque très intéressant, influences Suicide / Alan Vega et aussi Hawkwind et un peu de Jefferson Airplane dernière période. Dans l'esprit ça me fait penser à Steve Hillage fin des 70s également. Voilà pour tenter de décrire le style.A la fois heavy, hyponotique et pop. Des morceaux plannants mais avec une rythmique soutenue en même temps, des longs solos de guitare qui ne s'enlisent pas dans les sables (j'ai toujours eu du mal avec Live Dead du grateful D).Disque d'atmosphère addictif, je le passe souvent même après plusieurs mois.

If it weren't for the fact that Circles takes its name from an 1841 essay by transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson it'd have been as well to entitle it Loops. True we'd have then lost the telling allegory of Erik "Ripley" Johnson's exercises in repetition being code for organically approved order, but this otherwise open collection doesn't require such highbrow festooning to appeal when an erstwhile, almost self-mocking strain of frankness has been key to Johnson and his keyboard-wielding cohort Sanae Yamada's MO to date. Prior to this release, the  Mazes  LP predictably encoded a roundabout sense of dark-edged playfulness and before that the pair made their alter-ego  Escape , leaving San Franciscan space-rock overlords Wooden Shjips for pastures differently named if not massively distinct.Perhaps then a little less tunnel-visioned than Wooden Shjips, perhaps a touch more populist with occasional choruses, Moon Duo remains an extension of the pair's roots rather than a vacation and Circles a continuation of Mazes rather than a deviation. As such, and despite a couple of cuts like, for example, the summery psyche of the title track (which is probably the lightest loop-fest yet credited to the twosome - its spiralling synths and all), Circles is as comfortable an album as one so deeply mired in signature grind and fuzzed-out repeato-drone can be.The locked-in groove of "Sleepwalker" is particularly ear-catching with a vaguely Eastern line of psyche and Johnson's stoned whisper bubbling through the bong smoke like a becloaked night-crawler disturbing a descending fog. "I Been Gone" flexes some choice Hendrix-style guitar protestations and "I Can See" lollops up and down the scales, building to a lurching death-trap rollercoaster of blistering space-rock solos that are wisely reprised for "Dance Pt. 3", which boldly fires them off into uncharted regions of the galaxy, melting some third-eye minds in search of the better parts of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's career.Even though Circles houses some lesser jams that struggle to be memorable in such company it chooses to close with a stone-cold psyche-rock killer. All slow-motion oppression, "Rolling Out" starts life as a series of meditative rhythms that soothe like the endless chatter of a trundling locomotive before meandering its way via some outrageous guitar-manship to a dumper truck deposit of hypnotic scree. Given Circles' nomenclature it's only apt then that the natural response is but to repeat the cycle: flip, spin, engage ad infinitum.Advised downloads: "I Can See" and "Rolling Out". MazesEscape