Comments on: MP3 Discussion Group: ‘Choral’ & ‘Etching’ by Mountains

By: Joshua Maremont

Joshua Maremont — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:18:53 +0000

Of Dogstarman was not, actually, an unintentionally inspired post-mainline exercise in the waning days of the first Suede lineup (although I can only imagine the sound of such a thing), but a collaboration between Kosakai Fumio and Takahashi Ikuro, both veterans of the Japanese noise and psychedelic scenes, here taking a seventy-minute voyage into deep space with an engine room full of analog oscillators. It was released at a time in the late 1990s at which many of the leading noisemakers were taking a turn at ambience – the four-way split CD by Aube, Katsumi Sugahara, Fumio Kosakai, and Monde Bruits on Japan Overseas seeming to kick off this trend – with results sprawling toward, yes, the deeply droning side of the kosmische found on the early Cluster and Klaus Schulze records. Following this was a long series of ambient records by Aube and, most amusingly, the cod-kraut Alchemy Records cosmic series, including Aube’s tribute to Schulze’s Timewind. But of all of these Of Dogstarman keeps returning to the player and offers itself up as a fine example of a record very much indebted to its influences and yet very much of its own moment, memorable and playable over a decade after its release for both of these reasons. I find it fascinating that Emeralds and others (Oneohtrix Point Never comes to mind) are now, a decade later, taking the same route from noise to space with quite similar results, and I imagine that a decade from now we will hear these as records only possible from within the Midwestern noise scene of the present, and very far indeed from, for example, the synth records by blackmetallers like Neptune Towers or Paysage D’Hiver, despite the overlapping record collections of the musicians.

By: Alan Lockett

Alan Lockett — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:41:40 +0000

Of Dogstarman is a newie on me too, Joshua (some weird obscure semi-dyslexic reference to an old Suede album there? What’s up with that?!) – though mot sure if I truly need “Kluster/Cluster via quiet Japanese post-noise” in my life when I need to make room for so much more that’s demanding my attention. I can truly say I’ve never experienced a time as bad/good as the present for feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Stuff-Out-There that’s accessible and somehow requiring me to hear it. [aside: There's whole other debate to be had here which I won't get started on]
Oh, and, Julian, lemme know if you need any help with your ‘shopping list’; if it includes Growing and White Rainbow, for example, and some representatives of Students of Decay (=Alex Cobb aka Taiga Remains label), and you don’t necessarily want to have-and-to-hold, I can maybe uh… lend you something for your ears ;-)
Thanks for the musico-cultural exchange, chaps; pleasure as usual. See you in the next MP3 communal chinwag.

By: Julian Lewis

Julian Lewis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:26:04 +0000

Joshua, “the more I listen to it beside the groups to which it bears resemblance, the less it resembles them” is spot on! That uniqueness, or at least individuality, gives reason to hope that Mountains will still hold some interest over time – even if the action figures don’t work out…

Thanks too for the Of Dogstarman tip: yet another goodie for my extensive shopping list out of this discussion (as you say, “a whole wing of a record store”).

By: Joshua Maremont

Joshua Maremont — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:43:24 +0000

Julian, my favorite bit of that post was that Cluster are now Moe’n'Ach; I could see a summer buddy movie – one does the bleeps and glurps, the other does the sweeps and tunes – or at least an action comic book coming out of this. With a few more releases on the order of Choral and Etching, perhaps Bren’n'Koen will have their own line of action figures. I do agree that Emeralds have a clearer lineage – Kluster/Cluster via quiet Japanese post-noise (Of Dogstarman, anyone?) – than do Mountains, but then again I have just conjured up a whole wing of a record store in trying to pin them down. And really this is even more true of Mountains: the more I reach for references, the more references I need. I suppose that was what I meant by this group’s self-revelation in contrast: the more I listen to it beside the groups to which it bears resemblance, the less it resembles them.

By: Julian Lewis

Julian Lewis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:45:25 +0000

Joshua, you set a tough yardstick! I’d like to think that people will still listen to Mountains in 30 years. They should: their music is of its time, of course, but not aggressively so.

But who knows if music as we experience it today – largely separate from images & other media – will still be available & of interest then?

In any case, with all this krautrock comparison in the discussion, it’s interesting to put Mountains up against Emeralds (the closest peer?). In this light the duo’s bristly, blurred sound seems more individual & less rooted in a single influence than the excellent Emeralds of What Happened & – another one! – the European tour CD…

In this light, consider the new Cluster album (Qua) too – their first studio recording in 14 years. The lovable old krautlords are now trafficking in notably short little pieces – http://earslend.blogspot.com/2009/11/martian-shoe-factory.html – in contrast to Mountains’ languid unravelling.

By: Marc Weidenbaum

Marc Weidenbaum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:04:18 +0000

Alan, thanks for that clarification. I just have the single MP3 file version.

Joshua, I hear you — part of me wonders if you answered the question yourself. A little cynically, I can see the tour-only releases as opportunities for bands to sell the unheard to fans before its perceived value has been mediated by commentary. A little less cynically, I can see the tour-only releases as opportunities to reward fans with something ceremonial, and special for it. (I know I didn’t think twice before purchasing the Method of Defiance album at the band’s recent show in San Francisco — it wasn’t even “tour only” — just “minor hassle to find otherwise.”) The answer may as well be in the packaging. In the age of easily copied’n'pasted digital audio, it is precisely the handcrafted packaging that makes it special.

By: Joshua Maremont

Joshua Maremont — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:36:24 +0000

Alan’s post concerning the slightly tortured release history of Etching, puts me in mind of the often bothersome introduction of scarcity into the distribution of obscure music. There is something admittedly delicious about holding in one’s hand something rare – and I have to reveal that I was most saddened by the sold out situation at Broadcast’s show here in SF last night most of all due to my inability to grab the group’s latest tour-only CD, the last two having been so lovely – yet at times, and I should be clear that I am not suggesting that the release of Etching is one of these, I wonder why scarcity is even a factor at this point in the age of digital music, except as a way to enhance the value of music-bearing artifacts. It is, certainly, an effective marketing technique: if I see something unheard on the dreaded merch table of a show, I will probably read and listen up about it on line before purchasing it, yet if it is tour-only I will almost certainly give its immediate purchase more serious consideration. In these days of downloadable FLAC files, is there any reason for the auctioneers and the blog-rippers to have all the fun, with punishment to the fans who are late to the games.

But returning to the records at hand, as I listen further to Choral and particularly to Telescope (and Julian, I cannot part with this track), I am recalling another lovely bit of Sky Records longing from the last decade by Sand, entitled The Dynamic Curve, this being an interesting example of a shoegazing studio prankster getting his Sowiesoso on, but adding almost anthemic guitar chords and percussion to put the record unquestionably in the 1990s. And Mountains too are very much of their time, even if at this time we may most of all be interested in summing others. I do wonder whether anyone in thirty years will be summing these.

By: Alan Lockett

Alan Lockett — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:26:42 +0000

Yes, Marc, the piece is apparently split into two, and you could probably identify where, as boomkat says:

“The first side’s material slowly and steadily oozes into a fluid, continuous stream of processed post-folk drones, [...] Flipping over, *the second side seems to commence with a perpetual orchestra tune-up session*, announcing itself with rich sustained tones that eventually find accompaniment from bright synthesizer fluctuations,…” http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=231869

Elsewhere I read the following in re: the format history of “Etching”:
“…as Etching was recorded prior to Mountains heading out on tour in support of Choral, the record was packaged up as a CD-R and sold to concertgoers with special hand-stamped sleeves. In other words, getting your hands on an actual CD-R of this is going to be tough stuff unless you’ve been to the show and picked one up already or if you know how to rock the eBay.

Of course, if you have one of those old-fashioned record players, you may be in luck. Etching is set for a vinyl release on October 20, 2009. For the vinyl release, Mountains re-sequenced the original CD-R recordings and, naturally, packaged the records with a hand-stamped LP jacket and a coupon for the MP3 download of the piece.” http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-mountains-etching/

By: Marc Weidenbaum

Marc Weidenbaum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:10:39 +0000

Also, about Etching — my understanding is that Mountains released it initially as a CD-R, and that then Thrill Jockey picked it up for release on vinyl. I haven’t seen or heard the vinyl — anyone know how the vinyl differs? Is it the one piece split in two? Is the B-side something different?

By: Marc Weidenbaum

Marc Weidenbaum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:59:19 +0000

I’m going to comment on the “strumming” in Mountains’s music — which is to say, the unambiguous presentation of guitar played in a rural-ish mode.

I’m in favor of it. It distinguishes their drones from strum-less ones, the latter of which are far more common in electronic music. It finds a common ground between “pop” Brian Eno and “ambient” Eno. It finds a common ground between Eno and John Fahey. It lends a conceptual structure, not so much on “Add Infinity” (off ‘Choral’), in which the initial strumming is buried in the mix, but certainly on “Map Table,” in which naked guitar strumming suggests the beginning of a song (yeah, memories of practicing finger-picking with “Dust in the Wind” did come to mind) when in fact what happens is that a whole range of effects is slowly added to augment the playing, not to affect the sound so much as to complement it.

In the end, I definitely prefer the murkier approach — say, on “Sheets Two,” how a simple echo serves to put the guitar in a hall of mirrors, and how the bass string is left to rumble on its lonesome. But I appreciate how Mountains experiments with more traditional playing (again, “Map Table” is a primary example).

It’s kind of intriguing to me how things get turned around as a matter of cultural context, how what’s experimental or unusual about Mountains’s music is precisely how it ventures into non-abstract territory.