Psychic Ills / Moon Duo - Take Me With You/ Zoned (7" vinyl)

Not sure how this could go wrong. Both Moon Duo and Psychic Ills have been on flawless form lately, as have Canada’s classy Sacred Bones imprint, so I was looking forward to hearing this. Upon putting on the Moon Duo side it is immediately clear that Phil and Brian are intent on having an irritating twat-off over these sweet Spiritualized-esque repeato riffs, with Phil drumming on his legs and then Brian making annoying farty mouth-guitar noises along to the simple riff before they decide to have a shouty conversation on either side of me. Great. Just what I needed. It’s a neanderthal slog through an MC5 ‘Black To Comm’ two-note chug throughout for a hypnotic psych churn that is also reminding me a little bit of Lungfish. The first half has some monotonous vocals, the second half has some guitar soloing. You know where you are with these lads. Quality jam.

Flip it and Psychic Ills take things down a notch with a sleazy Nick Cave-esque bluesy “deep repetitive choogle” (in the words of the press release). Real minimal guitar and organ lines, quite catchy nonchalant vocals and insistently plodding rhythm section make for a moody choogle indeed. This hazy lazy side might actually be my favourite of the two jams, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just because Phil and Brian kept their mouths comparatively shut while I was listening to it.

Sorry Phil and Brian, it's been a long day.