With their/his new EP Killing Time, Moon Duo, a solo project from Wooden Shjips singer-guitarist Ripley Johnson, manages to overcome a slightly lousy band name and a potential first impression as a larky side project to emerge as the best thing yet to scamper out from Ripley and his Shjipmates’ collective womb. What we get is a 20-minute sl(ice)ab of reverb-y echo-y goodness, somewhere between Psychocandy-era JAMC playing NEU! covers on a hazy beach and a fetal Spacemen 3 jamming off on a Suicide tip in a gymnasium.

But enough of this lazy band-like-this band-like-that Criblecoblis. The real deal is that this shit right here is some tight, groovy jams from a dude in a band that is hardly known for its tight, groovy jams. To judge from their two major studio releases–Wooden Shjips (2007) and Dos (2009)–one of the limitations/virtues of the Wooden Shjips recorded experience is a tendency to kind of limp it up on the short tracks and lay it down thick and heavy on the drawn-out jammy bar excursions.

Moon Duo functions in quite the opposite way. The longest song on Killing Time peters out just shy of the six minute mark; this is around where the Shjips usually start warming up, but it works perfectly here. From the shimmery acid Spector throb of the title track, to the lovely sun-and-weed-bayked Moe-Tuckerik chug-a-lug of closer “Ripples,” Killing Time is the type of record you can throw on just about any old time. It’s loaded with catchy, tightly meandering jams that never overstay their welcome. Finishing up in 3” CDR time, the EP is just long enough to leave you satisfied, but just short enough to leave you wanting more. It’s gonna get a lot of burn around these parts so you should try to pick it up on vinyl before it sells out or something of that nature.

Moon Duo, “Dead West” (Killing Time EP, Sacred Bones)

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Words: Matt Kruglinksi

Purchase the record here.

Tags: Dead West, Killing Time, Moon Duo, Ripley Johnson, Sacred Bones, Wooden Shjips

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under ENGLISH, Reviews, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.