{"id":5513,"date":"2017-02-16T13:09:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T18:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=5513"},"modified":"2017-02-24T14:21:58","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:21:58","slug":"moon-duo-occult-architecture-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/moon-duo-occult-architecture-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Moon Duo <br>Occult Architecture Vol. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/moon_duo-occult_architecture_vol_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5514\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/moon_duo-occult_architecture_vol_1.jpg\" alt=\"Moon Duo, Occult Architecture Vol. 1\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/moon_duo-occult_architecture_vol_1.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/moon_duo-occult_architecture_vol_1-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>I came late to Moon Duo via stumbling across frontman Ripley Johnson\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2017\/feb\/03\/moon-duos-occult-architecture-psychedelia-guide\" target=\"_blank\">rundown<\/a> of his favorite psych records in <i>The Guardian<\/i>. (Johnson also plays guitar in Wooden Shjips, another band I\u2019ve slept on, regrettably.) The list\u2019s eclectic range of artists\u2014from Funkadelic to Royal Trux to J Dilla\u2014combined with the fact that Johnson looks straight out of central casting for a Rob Zombie B-movie, made me think that at the very least I needed to give a listen to <i>Occult Architecture Vol. 1<\/i> (Sacred Bones), the first installment of the band\u2019s self-described, two-part \u201cpsych opus\u201d and the fourth release from the duo rounded out by keyboardist Sanae Yamada. (Drummer John Jeffrey also contributes to the recordings.)<\/p>\n<p>The band\u2019s label describes the project as a \u201chymn to the invisible structures found in the cycle of seasons and the journey of day into night,\u201d which makes sense given Johnson and Yamada began recording in the dead of winter and continued into the rebirth months of spring. This is presumably the colder, darker of the two volumes, which is fine by me; I like my electronic fuzz-rock to have a slight air of menace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Death Set\u201d starts things off with a wall of droning synth effects and a garage riff that is properly dirty and noisy, but still gets your head bobbing, a nice complement to Johnson\u2019s spaced-out, woebegone vocals. \u201cCreepin\u2019\u201d is another scuzzy guitar rocker that has Johnson sounding a little like Thurston Moore for the first few seconds of each stanza before the song goes off into its inevitable prog meanderings.<\/p>\n<p>Moon Duo is at turns mellow and sinister, dark and danceable, and prone to jammy excursions over repetitive grooves that aptly evoke comparisons to \u201970s Krautrock bands like Neu! and Can. The album\u2019s stellar second track, \u201cCold Fear,\u201d is made of some big goth synth changes that will appeal to those who enjoy Ladytron at their witchiest. Possessed by the same new wave sensibilities, \u201cWill of the Devil\u201d begs to be played at club-level volume as well. Suicide is an obvious influence, and the bursts of repetitive, staccato electronic sounds that underpinned many of that seminal group\u2019s most notable songs can be heard here in \u201cCross-Town Fade\u201d and \u201cWhite Rose,\u201d which closes out the album.<\/p>\n<p>But is this record good? To these ears, it\u2019s one of the essential releases of 2017. I\u2019m eagerly awaiting the second half, though I have to say I\u2019d be perfectly happy even if spring never came.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came late to Moon Duo via stumbling across frontman Ripley Johnson\u2019s rundown of his favorite psych records in <i>The Guardian<\/i>. (Johnson also plays guitar in Wooden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,1082,92],"class_list":["post-5513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-moon-duo","tag-sacred-bones-records"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Moon Duo Occult Architecture Vol. 1 - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/moon-duo-occult-architecture-vol-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moon Duo Occult Architecture Vol. 1 - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I came late to Moon Duo via stumbling across frontman Ripley Johnson\u2019s rundown of his favorite psych records in The Guardian. 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