Moon Duo's guide to psychedelia

As the founder of San Francisco drone-rockers Wooden Shjips and one half of synth-driven psych pairing Moon Duo, Ripley Johnson has frequently set the controls for the heart of the sun. The new Moon Duo album, Occult Architecture Vol 1, is billed by its label Sacred Bones as the first instalment of a two-part “psychedelic opus” – yet Johnson is keen not to define psychedelia too rigidly. “All music has some psychedelic elements to me,” he explains. “It’s something that disrupts reality and transports the listener into a different mindspace, forcing them to perceive things differently. And all kinds of music can do that.” With that in mind, here are Johnson’s seven favourite head-spinning, reality-disrupting, genre-defying psychedelic albums.

Funkadelic, Funkadelic (1970)

I discovered this through a friend’s older brother, which is how I came across a lot of stuff as a teenager. It was the same person who turned me on to the Stooges. At the time, you couldn’t really find this stuff in a local record shop. You needed someone to guide you. We would record albums to cassette and carry a boombox out into the woods, take psychedelics and trip out to this crazy music.

Growing up in the 80s in New England, we were always looking for something weird as a reaction to the culture of the time – artists who were breaking social norms, who were rebels in some way. Funkadelic seemed a little wilder than the usual classic rock stuff I’d already heard. They were doing something irreverent and fun but also super weird. The album creates its own world, it takes you along on a ride. You want to go where these guys are going.

Monoshock, Walk To The Fire (1996)

The first real band I was in was called Botulism. We were inspired by things like Blue Cheer, [the Velvet Underground’s] Sister Ray, the Stooges, some of Neil Young’s more extreme guitar stuff. We were young and a little bit angry. There wasn’t a whole lot going on for bands like that in the 90s. But Monoshock were one band who gave myself and my friends hope that we weren’t the only ones.

If you listen to Walk To The Fire and then play the first Comets On Fire record you can hear an evolution. When Wooden Shjips first came out [in 2006] and people were talking about this new psychedelic movement, there was an attitude that nothing had been happening since the 60s. But there was lots of stuff happening, it was just underground. Monoshock had already split up by the time we came along, but their album got re-released and now I think it’s right there in the pantheon.

Twink, Think Pink (1970)

Twink was the drummer in the Pretty Things when they made SF Sorrow. This is the solo album he did directly after that with members of the Deviants, before they all went on to form the Pink Fairies. I came across this album around 10 years ago after a Wooden Shjips show. Someone from the audience came up to me, really enthusiastic, but also very strange – maybe he was actually tripping at the time – and wanted to tell me about one of the most psychedelic albums of all time, which was Think Pink.

And he’s right, Think Pink is one of the great records of the original psychedelic era. It uses all those classic psychedelic effects, a lot of phase-shifting and panning, but to great effect. It sucks you in and messes with your head. It’s well-produced, but it’s weird. I don’t think it was recorded with any intent of being on the charts. Back then, it was harder to make a record. What’s great about a lot of the classic-era psychedelic records is that people got a chance to go into a studio, which was a big deal, and then they made something completely weird that had no chance of selling – but they did it anyway, which I think is really admirable. Twink was a genuine freak, he was living the radical lifestyle to the full.

Sergius Golowin, Lord Krishna Von Goloka (1973)

This is one of three records released on Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s Die Kosmischen Kuriere label – the others being by Walter Wegmüller’s Tarot and Seven Up by Timothy Leary with Ash Ra Tempel, recorded while Leary was on the lam in Switzerland. They’re all great. This one’s got Klaus Schulze on drums and synthesizers. It’s really serene and pastoral and then Sergius Golowin, who was sort of a mystic character, does these really bizarre, otherworldly monologues over the top where he talks about Krishna – although it’s all in German so I have no idea what he’s really saying. It’s incredibly bizarre. Just when you’re settling into this relaxing, droning music, these intense German vocals come in, mixed really loudly. It’s like nothing else, it takes you to this strange place.

The Congos, Heart Of The Congos (1977)

I don’t think of psychedelic as a genre, I think of it as a descriptor. To me, some of the best psychedelic records are those which come from outside the world of psychedelic rock. This one’s a Lee Perry production. It has a very claustrophobic and heady vibe to it, even though it was made in Jamaica, which we think of being bright and tropical. I think it’s a masterpiece. The vocals are really haunting, with these fire-and-brimstone-evoking lyrics, so there’s a sense of dread. I don’t know what their mindset was when making it, but it sounds like no other reggae album I’ve ever heard.

There are a lot of experimental reggae producers but none that can really hold a candle to Lee Perry. I love how much chance is involved in early dub. These days, especially with computers, things are a little more surgical. I like music that’s a little more rough around the edges, that allows for circumstance to be part of the record.

Royal Trux, Twin Infinitives (1990)

In Wooden Shjips it was very hard for us to tour, for everyone to get time off work and to make it work financially. The impetus for Moon Duo was to do something with just two people that was practical and pragmatic. When you’re in a band with four or five people, the vision can sometimes be less focused. When you have just two people it’s more like a conversation, it’s much more intimate.

Our obvious inspiration when we started Moon Duo was Suicide but we were also looking at other duos, including Royal Trux. Like us, they’re a duo who were also a couple. Twin Infinitives sounds very personal, very claustrophobic. There’s a certain way they used reverb that instead of making things sound big and open, it made it sound like there was a fog around them. It’s also very noisy and fractured and disorienting and sounds kinda dangerous, like they were living on the edge. I listen to it and I worry about them.

J Dilla, Donuts (2006)

To me, this is the most psychedelic record that’s come out in the last 15 years. I’m not a huge hip-hop person but this album blew me away. We’re back to the idea of psychedelic albums taking you on a journey and creating a world you can enter. This album is like an acid trip or a carnival ride. You put it on and you just get swept away. The songs are so catchy, but they change before you want to them to, which creates this sense of freefall.

For people who don’t really appreciate sampling, this is a great record for them to listen to. On the one hand you can say it’s easy, that with machines and electronics you can create anything. But that’s a creative challenge right there. What’s your vision? What’s the story you’re telling? Having the tools is great, but you need the vision – and you need the soul, the humanity. That all comes across in this record. When you read the story of how he made it, in a hospital bed, it’s even more incredible [J Dilla was suffering from an incurable blood disease and died three days after Donuts was released]. It’s so joyous and so fun. A psychedelic record takes you to a different place – it can be a dark place, it can be a light place, it can be something you just never imagined before. And, to me, that’s what Donuts does. It never ceases to surprise me.

Moon Duo’s Occult Architecture Vol 1 is out on 3 February