Moon Duo @ Norwich Arts Centre

It’s a unruffled start to this evening at the Arts Centre - the audience are slow to turn up for their Friday night out, but the auditorium slowly fills up for new local three-piece wind trio Lom feat Bill Vine out of Collider. It’s a deconstructed, avant-garde affair created with a variety of instruments played with immense feeling, including clarinets, bass guitar and saxophone. The performance is enhanced with a screen projected with animations and photographs of nature, giving a hint as to the inspiration behind the tunes. Musically it’s by turns threateningly wild and gently peaceful, running the full gamut of emotions between. Periods of silence occur, as do jarring spikes of broken down melodies, and there are samples of what sound like air and wind running throughout, billowing quietly and bellowing great roars. Everyone's a bit nervous to clap at the end of each piece, but we all stand rapt and silent. This is a serious minimalist performance and a very interesting start to the night.

Moon Duo are playing just four dates in the UK plus Field Day, and we have been truly blessed to be a part of this tour. They look the part tonight for sure, dressed in black jeans and white t shirts, Ripley’s long hair and beard and Sanae’s dark shaggy locks fitting in perfectly with their effortlessly cool image. With abstract, bright projections that spread beyond the screen and out onto the band, the stage is full of energy and the searing heat of the Californian sun both visually and sonically. Their set is made up of songs from all their previous work and their latest album, Shadow Of The Sun, and it’s nothing short of fantastic. It’s properly heavy at times, with John Jeffrey pounding away like an absolute machine on the drums, head down, occasionally handling his maraca with aplomb and providing a concrete solidity to the music. Sanae on two keyboards supplies the pumping drone element, the murky yet sparkly side, as well as some cheeky electro melodies that carry the songs confidently. She’s totally immersed in doing her job, head down again, sweating, eyes closed. Finally Ripley on guitar and vocals, offers a voice that swoons above the sun-drenched tunes, and provides amazing solos within every track, keening and manipulating, heartsick sounds. I can hear Sonic Youth in their music, The Stooges, classic shoegaze and 70’s psych rock..there are some huge riffs in there..but their sound is definitely all their own. It’s intense, hypnotically powerful, sweeping everybody within a certain radius into its spell, and almost every song ascends very slowly and gradually to a madness of a repetitive wall of noise that circles us endlessly and mercilessly. I can’t imagine how they know when to stop each song as they don’t seem to look at each other at any point - they must be incredibly in tune with each other, and I don’t just mean instrumentally.