Posts Tagged ‘Sanae Yamada’

MOON DUO – ” Lost Heads “

Posted: August 6, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Moon Duo - Stars Are The Light (Dinked Edition)

“Stars Are the Light”, the luminous seventh album by the American psych explorers Moon Duo, marks a progression into significantly new territory. From a preoccupation with the transcendental and occult that informed Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada’s guitar-driven psych rock, and reached its apotheosis in the acclaimed Occult Architecture diptych, Stars Are the Light sees the band synthesize the abstract and metaphysical with the embodied and terrestrial. Branching out from Occult Architecture Vol. 2, the album has a sonic physicality that is at once propulsive and undulating; it puts dance at the heart of an expansive nexus that connects the body to the stars. These are songs about embodied human experience — love, change, misunderstanding, internal struggle, joy, misery, alienation, discord, harmony, celebration — rendered as a kind of dance of the self, both in relation to other selves and to the eternal dance of the cosmos. Taking disco as its groove-oriented departure point, Stars Are the Light shimmers with elements of ’70s funk and ’90s rave. Johnson’s signature guitar sound is at its most languid and refined, while Yamada’s synths and oneiric vocals are foregrounded to create a spacious percussiveness that invites the body to move with its mesmeric rhythms. With Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at the mixing desk in Portugal’s Serra de Sintra, (known to the Romans as “The Mountains of the Moon”) the area’s lush landscape and powerful lunar energies exerted a strong influence on the vibe and sonic texture of the album. On embracing disco as an inspiration, Yamada says, “It’s something we hadn’t referenced in our music before, but its core concepts really align with what we were circling around as we made the album.

We were also very inspired by the space and community of a disco – a space of free self-expression through dance, fashion, and mode of being; where everyone was welcome, diversity was celebrated, and identity could be fluid; where the life force that animates each of us differently could flower.”

From ‘Stars Are the Light,’ out September. 27th.out on Sacred Bones Records.

VIVE LA VOID – ” Red Rider “

Posted: March 20, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Vive la Void, a new project from Sanae Yamada, co-founder and keyboardist of Moon Duo. The self-titled album comes out on May 4th. Yamada wrote and recorded Vive la Void over roughly a two-year period, during windows of downtime in Moon Duo’s substantial touring and recording schedule. The dense, shape-shifting atmospheres of the seven songs grew out of late-night basement experiments in the layering of synthesizer tracks, a process that also led to meditations on the changeable nature of memory and perception.

The result is an undulating blend of ethereal swirl, low end thrumming, and electric crackle, buoyed by Yamada’s understated but captivating vocal melodies and her striking lyrics. Released on the Sacred Bones Records .

MOON DUO – ” Killing Time ” EP

Posted: June 5, 2017 in MUSIC
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Moon Duo is a project of Wooden Shjips guitarist and singer Ripley Johnson. Under the Moon Duo moniker, Johnson and collaborator Sanae Yamada create expansive Krautrock influenced tapestries of warm cascading fuzz and controlled feedback, organ, and accenting keyboard. This Reissued vinyl from 2009 features  four song 12-inch is the second release and incorporates a much more concise, composed and driving sound than before. The Duo expand on ideas only hinted at on the Sick Thirst 12-inch (which is already long gone) adding a driving drum machine beat behind the thick walls of layered sound.

Following the release of Moon Duo’s wonderful recordings two-volume Occult Architecture suite, the Portland-based band are reissuing their 2009 Killing Time EP as a deluxe expanded edition with three extra bonus tracks.

Those bonus tracks, ‘Bopper’s Hat’, ‘Run Around’ and ‘Dead West Pt. II’ have never been widely available on vinyl before. The newly expanded release is also available digitally.

Moon Duo return to the road next week, kicking off a European tour including festival stops at Beaches Brew in Ravenna and Roskilde Festival.

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MOON DUO – ” Creepin “

Posted: December 13, 2016 in MUSIC
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Moon Duo is a psych-rock/drone/krautrock band from Portland, Oregon by way of San Francisco. The project started in 2009 when Wooden Shjips guitarist Erik Ripley Johnson wanted a side band. He and Sanae Yamada (keys, vocals) joined forces, playing with programmed drums behind them. A couple of years ago, they hired drummer John Jeffrey to round out the band. Apparently, they had never met him, and they didn’t even audition him. He was hired after he met the band’s manager in Berlin. Things have worked out really well for them so far.

The band’s first album Mazes came out in 2011, followed by Circles in 2012. After that, they toured a lot. Not wanting to do that “write the new record on the road” thing, they waited until there was a big gap in their touring schedule to write and record Shadow of the Sun.

Moon Duo’s Occult Architecture Vol. 1, the first installment of a two-part album by the Portland psych heroes. The albums were inspired by the occult writings of Mary Anne Atwood, Aleister Crowley, Colin Wilson, and Manly P. Hall, as well as the Chinese theory of Yin and Yang. The darker Vol. 1 is being released in the dead of winter in the Northern Hemisphere (February. 3rd), and it represents Yin, or “the shady side of the hill.” Vol. 2 will follow in warmer months. Note: The limited edition LP of Vol. 1 comes housed in a deluxe box, which includes a space for Vol. 2 should you wish to purchase that when it comes out

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You can get some of the krautrock flavor in this song. The buzzy synths, the motorik-style drums, the delayed vocals. I love it. And of course it’s a little drone-y. It’s infectious, and I love it. It’s actually a little dark and gothy.

Here’s the official video for the song, which features Australian skateboarder Richie Jackson using all sorts of things including a pitchfork, a computer keyboard, and a car’s front bumper to make improvised skateboards. He also walks along in a ridiculously exaggerated gait, which spotlights the motorik beat. Make sure you watch the video all the way to the end.

What’s left to say about Moon Duo – not much, except that they continue on that cyclical drone path into musical nirvana. Divine.