“I’d say it’s just a case of trying to stay focused as much as possible,” Ripley divulges. Making the most of our time off the road, I suppose. And I get inspired during all the time we spend traveling, so I’m ready to write when I get home.”
While Moon Duo possess their own distinctive sound and style, there are aural hallmarks shared with Ripley’s foremost outfit. “In some ways Moon Duo is a reductionist Wooden Shjips. We’re working with more limited resources, at least when performing live, but the roots are the same,” he ponders. “But with Moon Duo there is more freedom to experiment with different
approaches. Having fewer people involved is freeing in that sense.”
Any discourse on the work of Moon Duo seems to always come around to a certain vanguard of influences, most notably late-‘70s luminaries Neu! and Suicide. But this range of purported influences seems to be as varied as they are vivid. “Well we don’t over-conceptualize the music, especially in relation to influences. We don’t try to sound like anything else,” Ripley muses. “We digest influences like anyone else. We’re voracious music consumers, so it all gets well blended together in our psyches.”
It’s easy to classify the outfit’s body of work as mostly experimental, both in sonic structure and with composition in general, an experiment which has generated consistent results over the project’s lifespan. “I’d say I still view it as an experiment more than a band. But I guess with any project the first attempt always feels the most experimental because you have no history of success or failure. We approach each record differently and try to expand and change our sound, so it never feels static and comfortable,” Ripley states. “It’s more intuitive than meticulous. We try to be as spontaneous as possible and not over-write the songs before the recording process. I liken it to a sculptural process, a building of sound.”
Though emanating such sprawling soundscapes, Ripley feels that he and Sanae are always in control of the songs, not letting them slide too far out of their grasp. “Well we do have certain restrictions, being a duo and working with programmed beats. Mostly that’s in a live setting though,” he states.
Those simplistic synthesised drum beats define most of Moon Duo’s work, inviting such aforementioned Krautrock comparisons. In a way, the driving beat evolves into something of a third band member. “I would say those beats function an engine more than an anchor because they drive the music for the most part. A lot of the songs were written with the beat as the first element,” he reveals. “I’m really inspired by rhythm and movement, and that’s part of why they are incessant and repetitive.”
Two-piece bands are often renowned for self-imposing a certain range of rules and boundaries, often dictated by necessity in the live setting. However Ripley doesn’t feel bound by any manifesto of sorts. “We don’t really limit ourselves for conceptual purposes. We have been limited in the past by the gear we happened to have on hand, but we have expanded that a bit as we’ve progressed. Often we’ll get some new piece of gear, or tool, and that will allow us to change focus or expand the sound,” he recalls.
Last time Ripley was in Australia he was touring with Wooden Shjips, a tour which included boot-raising performance at The Supernatural Amphitheatre for the 2008 Golden Plains, a set he remembers well. “That was an amazing experience. We always like to joke that, being
from California, we bring the sunshine with us. The clouds parted for us that day, to everyone’s relief, and the crowd gave us the boot, which was a great honour,” he beams.
The boot-inspiring moment came during a barnstorming rendition of Neil Young’s Vampire Blues. So do Moon Duo have any choice covers in their repertoire? “In our live set we’ve actually been doing Set It On Fire by Aussie legends The Scientists. We’ve recorded that one, Hurry On Sundown by Hawkwind, A Little Way Different by Errol Dunkley, and Winter by The Rolling Stones. Oh, and the Christmas nugget Silver Bells,” he laughs. “We have fun with the covers.”
