Moon Duo - Mazes

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5...according to our Business Lady on Fri 01 Apr, 2011.

Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and his partner, Sanae Yamada return with another fine installment of Moon Duo fun. After a slew of EP's and singles under their collective belt it's about time they came a knocking with a debut full length and you'll be pleased to hear it's another fine collection to add to the Moon Duo audio family. Musically the duo have learnt to diversify their output which has made a big difference to the aesthetic of their overall sound. Moon Duo rely less on rhythmic repetition and the lo-fi haze of home recorded, reverb drenched guitars and synths than on previous outings which makes for more excitable listening. The vocals are also a lot clearer and more consistent on 'Mazes'. I can even make out a few of the words! It's still adheres to the fundamental framework that made previous outings so good but they're mixing things up a bit which is great. I guess they've kinda traded in the drony Krautrock elements in favour of a San Fran psych meets Velvet Underground scrappiness that gives 'Mazes' a distinctive road movie-esque feel. Johnson & Yamada have also gone all out with the production values, layering percussion, guitars and organs to give 'Mazes' an epic cinematic. It's also worth mentioning that Johnson's guitar solo's are consistently awesome throughout. In a duo who's music relies heavily on rigid repetitious grooves these break out moments make all the difference and are dealt with nicely by the axe man. So yeah, great debut. Album comes with a remix CD featuring Sonic Boom, Psychic Ills, Cave and Purling Hiss and the vinyl comes with a nice maze duo sticker. Happy days kids.

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Formed in San Francisco in 2009 by Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and his partner, Sanae Yamada, Moon Duoʼs 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 ʻnʼ roll to create tracks of blistering, 12-cylinder space rock. Now their debut album Mazes, recorded in San Francisco and mixed in Berlin during 2010 as the band prepared to move to the mountains of Colorado, explores a far broader, lighter, sound.

Thatʼs most clear on the dreamy organ and skipping riff of the title track, which recalls the Velvet Underground, or the handclaps and swinging organ bloops over the potent shredding and guttural riff delivered by Johnson in When You Cut: “He is an incredible guitar player,” enthuses Yamada, “He is one of those musicians who has the ability to elicit a guttural, corporeal response in the listener.” Throughout, Mazes is the sound of Moon Duo carving out their own identity, looking to the horizon, and moving forward.

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.”

Yamada is happy to discuss how the romantic relationship at the core of Moon Duo has affected Mazes: “Any creative partnership involves a certain level of intimacy, as does any coupling. In each type of partnership you understand certain things about the other or others involved based on the nature of your interactions,” she explains. “To mix the two is kind of a melding of intimacies – you discover different dimensions of knowing the other person. At the same time it is hard to distil specific aspects that that dynamic brings to the music.” And she insists: “The music is the music.”

“We wanted to do something in a more ʻrock ‘n’ roll bandʼ style, something a bit fuller than our previous recordings.” In terms of recording this meant that Moon Duo “used more tracks on this record, in order to get a denser, layered sound to make this our ʻrock bandʼ record. I grew up a huge Stones fan, so I’ve always liked that dense sound, with multiple guitar tracks, percussion, piano, organ – anything you can

squeeze into the mix.”

This meant a vastly different recording process to Moon Duoʼs first two EPs, which were recorded fast and at home. Mazes was a more drawn-out process, involving proper recording studios for the first time including the trip to Berlin to mix and rerecord certain parts and the track ʻRun Aroundʼ. “The working title was Die Blumen [the flowers], so going into the mix sessions we kind of felt like it was becoming our ʻBerlin recordʼ, but in the end it retained the stamp of San Francisco and we liked Mazes title better anyway.” And ultimately, Mazes is a definably American record, recorded against the backdrop of the Johnson and Yamadaʼs move from the Californian coast to the heights of Colorado. “I think a lot of our music has something to do with the mythology of the road,” muses Moon Duoʼs Sanae Yamada. And if Mazes is a quest, a journey through American landscape and music, Johnson concludes that its key is “finding one’s place in the world; moving forward, and the different paths one takes moving through life, trying to reach various goals, literally moving; love; pain; change. Or just getting by, and making sense of things.”

TRACKLISTING:

1. Seer 2. Scars 3. Fallout 4. When You Cut 5. Run Around 6. In the Sun 7. Goners 8. Mazes

Bonus disc:

1:           Scars (Sonic Boom Remix)
2:           Seer (Psychic Ills Remix)
3:           Run Around (Cave Mix Organ Desert Mix)
4:           In The Sun   (Purling Hiss Remix)

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