Orbiting a parallel earth, where Spacemen 3 are bigger than the Beatles and no song can legally be shorter than four minutes, are Moon Duo. Over seven years and four albums the Portland pair have rarely wavered in their commitment to exploring the outer edges of space rock and psych, and taking in influences as diverse as Silver Apples and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their latest effort, Occult Architecture, is a pair of albums inspired by gnostic literature and hidden patterns in the seasons, with Vol 1 thematically exploring darkness, and the follow-up tackling light. Darkness in this instance apparently means austere krautrock, with the band spending much of the album engaged in long, droning, synth-laden refrains, where melody is kept to an absolute minimum. Occasionally it resembles the musical equivalent of the Sideshow Bob rake joke from The Simpsons, with the repetitive groove reaching a peak of monotony, then suddenly becoming interesting all over again. Undoubtedly one for the purists, but it’s hard not to admire their focus.
