For Sanae Yamada—keyboardists and one half of psychedelic rockers Moon Duo— the most surreal aspect of relocating from the Bay Area to Portland a few years back was the difference in seasons. Portland’s were pronounced, but she had barely noticed the cyclical shifts in San Francisco. Over time, her memories of Northern California became more difficult to place in time, because there weren’t weather clues attached to them.

This realization, in part, inspired the group’s most ambitious project to date: a two-album exploration of the hidden energies in our universe. It’s kind of about weather, but it’s also about the unseen spiritual energies that guide our world. The album is divided into the dark (Occult Architecture Vol. 1, released this month) and light (Occult Architecture Vol. 2, slated for release later this year).

“It wasn’t like we sat down and were like, ‘Let’s make a record about the seasons,’ but removing myself from the context of the seasons gave me totally different qualities to my memories,” Yamada says. “It was more the binary aspects of things that we were talking about—the existence of opposites that contrast each other, at the same time define each other, and make up this whole.”

In a way, the concept of the record isn’t different than anything the group’s done on their previous three LPs. Examining the occult, the spirituality of the natural world, and even the weather (the album Circles was partially inspired by the sunniness of Colorado, where they recorded it) has always been a part of how the duo makes music. What is different is the size and scope of the project—the two albums were made back to back to give them the feel of a single project. Going into it, they didn’t know if it would even work.

“It’s a very daunting concept to take on.” Yamada says. “I don’t, by any means think that we covered it. We just opened a few doors, I guess. I think that the investigation of the cycles and the patterns and structures that make up our reality, matter and consciousness and all of those have been an enduring fascination for both of us.”

The first record, which is supposed represent darkness, doesn’t sound how one might imagine. It features fast-driving, precise playing; a heavy dose of new wave synth, offset by Ripley Johnson’s fuzzed-out guitar. Johnson’s vocals also feel different this time around. He sounds as if he’s in a trance—his delivery squashed, almost expressionless.

Yamada explains that she and Johnson weren’t looking to make a dark album—at least not in the sense of something evil or sorrowful. The word that stuck out for them when they made the album was “claustrophobic.” In dialing in her synths, Yamada says she sought out “a lot of growling sounds and gurgling sounds, little sharp stabbing textures.” She was thinking about a cave space, she says, like liquid bubbling up from the ground. The vocals were recorded normally, but were mixed in a way that gave them a compressed sound.

The forthcoming second installment of Occult Architecture has no such effect applied to the vocals. The most important thing was for it to sound expansive and summer-y. And Yamada worked on a different sound palette on Vol. 2. “I tried to make more sugary sounds, like granular floating textures,” she says. “Like dust in the air.”

Ambition aside, the most remarkable thing about this pair of records may be the way they have expanded the group’s sound beyond the confines of the psych rock genre they are most often associated with.

“We definitely get labeled psychedelic, which I actually don’t mind so much, in that the term itself, is a pretty expansive term,” Yamada says. “I think a lot of things could fit under the heading. But I think in its current iteration, there’s definitely a fairly identifiable sound that goes along with it that we don’t necessarily fit that well.”

Moon Duo
Feb 22, 8pm, $15
Don Quixotes, Felton

The San Francisco-bred indie-psych droners, Moon Duo, drew a sizable crowd to Cafe Stritch in San Jose’s SoFA district on Saturday. The show, booked by the “boutique music and events curator and presenter,” (((folkYEAH))), featured retro, acid test-esque light projections courtesy of Mad Alchemy Liquid Lights and ambient opener Matt Baldwin and the slow morphing synth and guitar grooves of Seventeen Evergreen.

Check out these photos from Metro photographer Greg Ramar:

When Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada first began making music together as Moon Duo, they didn’t set too many parameters for themselves or what the group could be. “I think initially, we didn’t want to define it so much,” Yamada says. “It was more asking the question, where can we take music with just two people trying to play rock. We tried not set any limitations or strict boundaries.”

According to Yamada, keyboardist, drum machine maestro and knob-twiddler for Moon Duo, she and her musical/romantic partner just wanted to give themselves the freedom to do whatever—even if that meant turning Moon Duo into a trio. And so they did.

While touring Europe last summer, the San Francisco-bred psych rock outfit hired drummer John Jeffrey—after a glowing endorsement from their manager, and without an official audition.

“We’d been doing what we’d been doing with the drum machine for a while, and I think we were both ready for something new and fresh,” Yamada says, explaining Moon Duo’s decision to take on Jeffrey. “We just sort of took a gamble, and it ended up being really great.”

Yamada and Johnson quickly found a kindred spirit in Jeffrey. And as the band grew tighter, Yamada says they began thinking about documenting their evolving sound. “The musical chemistry was building throughout the course of the tour, so we thought we should try to record some of the shows and see if anything good comes from it,” she says.

The San Francisco-bred psych outfit had been mulling the idea of recording a live album for a while, Yamada says. They had just never felt like the time was right until Jeffrey came along.

Releasing a live record didn’t make much sense when the band was still using programmed drum loops, Yamada explains, noting that drum machines aren’t known for their improvisational spontaneity. “To me, the best live records are the ones that sound better than the studio recordings.”

In early September, Moon Duo released the six-song Live In Ravenna, recorded one blisteringly hot night in the northwestern Italian city named in the album’s title. And this Saturday, Moon Duo will bring Jeffrey, along with a stack of limited edition vinyl pressings of Live In Ravenna, to Café Stritch, where they will headline yet another (((folkYEAH!)))-hosted show at the SoFA venue.

The show will mark one of the first times that Moon Duo has ever played in the U.S. with a live drummer. Yamada says she is “psyched” to play in the States again after several trips through Europe. Moon Duo fans should be excited too—both to hear the new lineup live, and to grab a copy of the limited edition vinyl pressing of Live In Ravenna, which the band will be selling at their merch booth.

Live In Ravenna is imbued with a different kind of energy than any other Moon Duo collection, and much of that is clearly due to Jeffrey—and his free will. As a drummer, he demonstrates great discipline in holding to the repetitive patterns originally programmed by Moon Duo. Even so, the human behind the beat shines through in both a hard-to-qualify energy and in Jeffrey’s occasional off-script fills and flourishes.

The versions on the live album also feel more urgent and visceral, which may also be due to human imperfection and the tendency for live performances to be a bit faster than their studio counterparts.

While the title track of Moon Duo’s Mazes sort of hops and skips to a start, with the drum machine’s kick-snare beat and Johnson’s guitar bound tightly together. The Ravenna version, on the other hand, positively explodes—the rattling, rumbling, roaring tom-tom whacks of Jeffrey’s kit fight against the fuzz of Johnson’s guitar, which is so drenched in reverb that the chord changes are less distinct, and more like a flowing river of fuzz.

Moon Duo is in the midst of finishing up their their third full-length album, which is slated for release sometime next spring. They play Cafe Stritch on Oct. 11 at 8pm. More info.

Watch Moon Duo’s video for Sleepwalker here: