Mountain Man, darlings of the Underwater Peoples label that I love so much, have just released Made the Harbor, their first full length album, and it is very, very good. All thirteen tracks are spellbinding and I wouldn't be without a single one.
Second song Animal Tracks is heart-rending for reasons that you just can't place, like a smell trying to evoke a distant memory. The vocals rise and swell, ebb and fall, rise and swell, the melody revealing the story rather than the esoteric lyrics, arranged over just two chords. It is this simplicity which is particularly striking about the album; for all Dog Days' haunting ferocity. only a smattering of guitar notes frame the yearning voices, while many tracks, such as the cover of The Mills Brothers' How'm I Doing? and album closer, River Song, are completley a cappella. Oh, and I must mention, if only in passing, the latter's use of rasping breath in place of percussion.
In short, Mountain Man are fantastic, the best thing I have heard for a very, very long time. he more I listen, the more I realise this is something special and that Mountain Man have created that than which there is nothing more beautiful; an album which part of you wants to selfishly clutch to your chest and never share, ever ever.
During a gig in Manchester a few weeks ago, Amelia Randall Meath joked that she once stopped someone from killing her by singing them a song; something which is not entirely unbelievable. If any music has the power to calm a murderous mind, this is it.
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