Wooden Shjips

Rhythmic primitivism

Sub Pop's biography says the band began as an experiment in rhythmic primitivism and group improvisation, drawing on psychedelia, classical minimalism and garage rock. Wikipedia dates the start to 2006 and MusicBrainz to 2003; comparisons include Suicide, Spacemen 3, Loop, the Velvet Underground and Guru Guru. Ripley Johnson later formed Moon Duo with Sanae Yamada in 2009 and has a solo project, Rose City Band. The 2006 self-released 10-inch "Shrinking Moon for You" sold out, Tom Lax and Byron Coley praised it, and David Fricke covered the 7-inch "Dance, California" in Rolling Stone.

The debut album Wooden Shjips (September 10, 2007) and Dos (April 2009) were produced, engineered and mastered by the band themselves, per Drowned in Sound. Sub Pop released the single "Loose Lips" in October 2007, and the compilations Vol. 1 (2008) and Vol. 2 (March 30, 2010) followed. They played All Tomorrow's Parties in Monticello, New York, in September 2010 at Jim Jarmusch's request. West came out in 2011 on Thrill Jockey, then Back to Land (November 12, 2013) and V. (May 25, 2018). By 2018 half the band lived in Portland and half in San Francisco, and Johnson told KEXP they are not a regular working band. A June 8, 2018 San Francisco show was released as a live album in 2019.