Electro-acoustic journeymen Mountains populate their full-length LP releases with drifting expanses of analog drone, sculpting meditations equally capable of dilating time during a focused listen or enhancing any concurrent tasks with the benevolent murmurings of their machinery. The New York based duo’s fine-tuned senses of structure and drama set them apart from their contemporaries: if some drone-based projects seek transcendence in minimal fields of sound and static narrative arcs, Mountains charges their sessions with upheavals in form, continually refining their atmospheres with the onset of each new lead voice or synth patch. This dynamism stems in part from the intricate systems of gear at their fingertips. Modular synthesizers, guitars, and effect pedals consume entire tables in a live setting, offering a wide palette of textures to juxtapose or drape together over webs of looped electronic pulses.
As part of their ongoing single series You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, Geographic North presents a 7” of new Mountains material that pleasantly deviates from the duo’s usual long-form tactics. The release’s two pieces compress their upward trajectories and overlapped complementary voices into miniature snapshots of activity that fade into life and recede back into the black all before the needle reaches the center of its seven diametric inches of real estate. “Parallel One” percolates over muffled modular rumblings into a lattice of filter-swept drones and zig-zagging synth missives. With its backdrop set into motion, the piece stretches its pedals toward the sun with each subsequent fine-grained hum that layers into the spread. “Parallel Two” sinks into a deeper drift as a gently distorted wash of tone colludes with rounder root notes that shine somewhere behind the curtain, sparking into life with busier arpeggios in the last minute before easing back into absence.
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• Mountains: http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Mountains
• Geographic North: http://geographic-north.com