UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA @ Echo

Moon Duo || Listen||Watch

Moon Duo are San Francisco’s Sanae Yamada and Erik “Ripley” Johnson, guitarist for psychedelic journeymen Wooden Shjips. After a quick EP and single released within a year of their 2009 formation, they’re bringing Escape (via recent lo-fi haven Woodsist) just as swiftly. Four songs in just under 30 krautrock minutes, it’s an LP that pulls Johnson even closer to Suicide and Silver Apples, influences that have played an audibly important role in his work with Wooden Shjips. Johnson’s vocals are barely there, whispers buried in sheets of two-chord riffs and Yamada’s keyboard dissonance. Moon Duo don’t stray too far from the deep-cutting, fuzzy gymnastics of Johnson’s other band, though he’s allowed further freedom to hypnotize on the playground where he’s most comfortable. More than just a branching off deeper into another third eye, Escape is a pop record at its core.

Or at each end. Opener “Motorcycle, I Love You” churns along on a classic Phil Spector drumbeat, speeding up as Yamada and Johnson add layer upon layer of shadow and menace. It’s a very sexy juxtaposition, and Moon Duo’s music is sexy throughout, the interplay between Johnson and Yamada on full, propulsive display. Whether Johnson’s taking a pause to add some breathy vocals or working up a froth on his guitar, the song’s pulse won’t quit. The middle of the record’s a different animal. “In the Trees” slows shit down to a grind, Johnson soloing through screens and clouds of low-end more akin to the drone of Wooden Shjips. “Stumbling 22nd St” employs an equally heavy feel, Yamada acting as the song’s melodic spine this time out with a keyboard riff her bandmate embraces from time to time by mimicking it on guitar.

The titular closing track is pure pop in comparison, if only in that it’s infinitely lighter and easy to digest. Riffing over a drumbeat and a breeze, Johnson sounds a lot like Ducktails’ Matthew Mondanile as the latter does when in his zone. All that track-by-track geeking aside, what makes Escape so successful is that these two are able to meet you halfway– just as they do one another. Traditionally, the repetitive forms they’re working with make for relatively passive listening. But this isn’t that kind of psych record; textures are engaging, rhythms reveal serious drive. And be it the way they set a hook or the way they lord over each song’s space, Moon Duo don’t beam you out. They pull you in. Pitchfork

Crystal Antlers || Listen||Watch
Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers covered the same Mose Allison song as Blue Cheer on their first 7-inch—which is now trading for upward of $100 among people who didn’t have the opportunity or sense to go buy ’em fresh at Long Beach’s Dyzzy On Vynyl. They grew from there into a fearsome beast that was part American fringe-garage freak-out and part early Funkadelic, with long, loping songs just bristling with guitar. After unfair hard luck when their label Touch and Go went under just after releasing their first LP, Crystal Antlers regrouped with a recording retreat to Mexico and a self-released single that added a strange, engaging pop sensibility to their much-loved heavy-rock madness. They haven’t made bands like this since the heyday of SST—independent, unpredictable and righteous in both riff and deed.OC Weekly

XU XU FANG || Listen||Watch

Unknown Mortal Orchestra || Listen
Apt in its name, Unknown Mortal Orchestra remained in a state of preliminary elusiveness that was similar to Burial or Neon Indian; it was real quality music without any facts about the member(s) behind its formation. What was evident was how Unknown Mortal Orchestra was crafting flexibly infectious psych-pop gems, calling for – once again – the tendency of listeners to make abstract generalizations regarding the project’s identity. If a project sounds great and no one is taking credit for it, wouldn’t it have to be an artist with some notoriety already? Many would think that would be the case. At the very least, perhaps someone with noted experienced. There is no predictable nature to this guessing work though, as it is quite possible for someone to emerge out of nowhere, like Bevan did, to create material that sounds like the work of a very experienced producer.
Obscure Sound