Album Review: Moon Duo - Circles

Whilst Moon Duo – Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips' fame and Sanae Yamada – brought some cosmic nous to their previous releases, there is something about second LP Circles that, whilst hard to pin down, makes it difficult to interact with. After all, space rock jams are Johnson's specialty, and the innate musical relationship that he shares with Yamada is without doubt, thus making this a frustrating proposition. Nevertheless, Circles still manages to crawl under the skin.

This all sounds convoluted, but as the album plays out it appears that the true culprit here is pop. Yes, Moon Duo are Johnson's outlet to tickle the boundaries of conventional wisdom, even if it's steeped in Krautrock swirls and electronic drone. Nevertheless it's on tracks such as Sparks and I Been Gone that the conciseness of the songs works to detriment rather than a refreshing change of pace – the minimal compositions and flourishes feel flat. This is in some ways the point: Circles was constructed in the Rockies whilst ruminating on the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson's studies of circles in nature, hence the repetitive nature inherent throughout. Yet such an experiment only works fully when elongated almost to breaking point, which is why the unapologetic weight of eight-minute closer Rolling Out is by far the best experiment with this idea. Elsewhere, the songs that work are the ones that veer away from such machinations – the playful title track revitalises, whilst the swagger of Sleepwalker and sparkling fade-out of Trails are Moon Duo at their finest.

Overall though, Circles falls into the trap of being too familiar – but maybe that's the point?