Black Mountain
BIO
Some artists seem doomed/blessed to live under the glittering yoke of a single (massively successful) affiliation – Mick Jagger will always be ‘of the Rolling Stones’, Thom Yorke ‘that weird looking chap from Radiohead’ (even his solo material is tagged as “Radiohead” on some searchable sites) and Mark Wahlberg will always be ‘the fit bad boy from NKOtB’. Mayhaps this is an informal indictment (*cough*, lexical contradiction) of the inflexibility of fame; the enormous, unbearably real Mannequin that observes all that these “big names” do, assuring they don’t step a foot out of their subjectively formed stereotype-cage. By ascending to a level of notoriety they become (they, themselves) public property, immutable and unchangeable. Similarly/conversely, variety to the extent of profligacy can be a death knell for artists, I suppose immediately post-Roxy Music Eno would be the best example of this, producing some of the best artists of the 80’s (Talking Heads’ three best records, U2’s Joshua Tree etc.) as well as being an obscenely inventive solo sound technician before he became trapped in being a gun for hire for Coldplay etc.: however, certain individuals are fated/suited to live below the fame barrier, forming project after project with enough success and recognition to be sustainable, but without the dilution that diversification can bring. Black Mountain songwriter Stephen McBean would be one of the latter. Over the years the Vancouver singer/songwriter has had a number of projects – Pink Mountaintops, Jerk With a Bomb, and his current creative outlet, Black Mountain. Although none of them could ever be accused of deviating too much from the tested formula of reference-happy rock’n’roll, their experimentalism within the form is validation enough.
Their debut self-titled album was released in 2005 on Jagjaguwar (home of Dinosaur Jr, GAYNGS and Okkervil River) was hailed as a “rollicking, wildly adventurous reconfiguring of 1960s and 70s nostalgia that's as duty-bound to the present as it is sympathetic to the past” (Pitchfork), swaying between between Galaxie 500 / Velvet Underground-ish introspection and balls-out Zepellin inspired riffery. Though it’d be easy as pie to level the stoner-rock accusation at the band, that’d be proof that the easiest thing isn’t always the right thing to do – for all their semblance of simplicity marks a core of cerebral solidity. There is nothing stupid about this kind of rock’n’roll - sure, it is all heavily configured to forms, but it is the way they deviate from these standards that mark the groups inventiveness. Take album opener ‘Modern Music’, a jittering ripple of parped saxophone and skittering drums – the album’s least anachronistic track - over which McBean and fellow singer Amber Webber ironically claim they “can’t stand all your modern music”.
Black Mountain are about as referential as they come, but in an epoch in which the lessons of the past seem to be bullheadedly ignored, it seems right for a band to celebrate and expand the positive lessons of history – that lesson being to ROCK THE HECK OUT. Their latest offering Wilderness Heart is out through Jagjaguwar in Europe on the 14th September, and as a special little pressie the band are this week offering the single 'Old Fangs' as a download FOR FREE from their website. They’re also hitting it this way for a number of shows across the UK (see below).
LINKS
http://www.myspace.com/blackmountain
http://www.blackmountainarmy.com/
TOUR DATES
26 July 2010 - Vaudeville Mews, Des Moines, IA, US
27 July 2010 - The Waiting Room, Omaha, NE, US
28 July 2010 - The Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO, US
30 July 2010 - Urban Lounge, Salt Lake City, Utah, US
31 July 2010 - Neurolux, Boise, ID, US
26 August 2010 - Bootleg theatre, Los Angeles, CA
30 Aug 2010 - The Knitting Factory - Brooklyn, New York, NY
3 Sep 2010 - Electric Picnic, Co. Laois, IRELAND
4 Sep 2010 - Academy 2, Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM
5 Sep 2010 - Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, UK
8 Sep 2010 - concorde 2, Brighton, UK
9 Sep 2010 - Radar Festival, Tourcoing, FRANCE
10 Sep 2010 – Bestival, Isle of Wight, UK
11 Sep 2010 – End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, GB
12 Seo 2010 – T.J’s Woodhouse, Leeds, UK
14 Sep 2010 – Orian Mor, Glasgow, UK
15 Sep 2010 – Academy 3, Manchester, UK
16 Sep 2010 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, UK
17 Sep 2010 – Incubate Festival Natuurtheater, Tilburg, Netherlands
20 Sep 2010 - Gebaeude 9, Koln, GERMANY
21 Sep 2010 - Grünspan, Hamburg, GERMANY
22 Sep 2010 - Leppon, Copenhagen, DENMARK
27 Sep 2010 - Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin, GERMANY
28 Sep 2010 - 59:1, Munich,GERMANY
29 Sep 2010 - Salumeria della Musica, Milan, ITALY
30 Sep 2010 - Bronson, Ravenna, ITALY
1 Oct 2010 - Circolo degli Artisti, Rome, ITALY
3 Oct 2010 - Le Romandie, Lausanne, SWITZERLAND
4 Oct 2010 - La Maroquinerie, Paris, FRANCE
5 Oct 2010 - Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, BELGIUM
6 Oct 2010 - Paradiso, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
7 Oct 2010 - Shepherds Bush Empire, London, UNITED KINGDOM
VIDEO
Black Mountain - Old Fangs OMV
Black Mountain - Angels OMV
Black Mountain - Set Us Free
words and thoughts by Samuel Smith