First Mountain

One song about preparing to exact bloody revenge begets another song about the act of exacting bloody revenge and then more songs about the causes and the aftermath of being driven to exact bloody revenge, each delivered with the urgency and desperation deserving of their narrators and circumstances. John Darnielle & the Mountain Goats present Bleed Out, a brand new collection arriving on August 19th.

On the first of March, 2020, John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Matt Douglas, and Jon Wurster, aka the Mountain Goats band, visited legendary studio Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, TN. Darnielle armed his band with new songs and reunited with producer Matt Ross-Spang who engineered last year’s In League with Dragons. In the same room where the Cramps tracked their 1980 debut album, the Mountain Goats spent a week capturing the magic of a band at the top of its game. The result is Getting Into Knives, the perfect album for the millions of us who have spent many idle hours contemplating whether we ought to be honest with ourselves and just get massively into knives. Getting Into Knives includes guest performance on Hammond B-3 organ by Charles Hodges (of numerous Al Green records) and guest performance on guitar by Chris Boerner (of the Hiss Golden Messenger band).

Described as the Swedish answer to the Pierces, sisters Johanna and Klara Soderberg, aka First Aid Kit, blend autumnal folk and wistful '60s Americana, and have gathered a pretty illustrious following since their cover version of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" became a YouTube hit back in 2008. As well as releasing their debut single through the Knife's Rabid Records label, they have since made Patti Smith cry with their rendition of her 1979 single "Dancing Barefoot," been courted by Jack White, who invited them to appear on two tracks for his Third Man Records' Blue Series, and now find themselves under the guidance of producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) for their second album, The Lion's Roar. It's an impressive turn of events for a duo that hails from a small suburb of Stockholm, but the follow-up to 2010's The Big Black & the Blue reveals why First Aid Kit have attracted so much attention. Juxtaposing the girls' glorious ethereal harmonies with a genuine sense of melancholy, the bittersweet alt-country of "Emmylou," a tribute to the musical partnerships of Ms. Harris and Gram Parsons, and Johnny Cash and June Carter; the twinkling Mama Cass-esque "Blue"; and the lush acoustics of "I Found a Way" are all beautifully heartbreaking.

Molly O'Day - And The Cumberland Mountain Folks (1946-1951) {2CD Bear Family BCD15565 rel 1992}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 299 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 213 Mb
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© 1946-51, 1992 Bear Family Records | BCD15565
Country / Traditional Country / Mountain Music

The double-disc set Molly O'Day & the Cumberland Mountain Folks contains all 36 tracks that O'Day recorded for Columbia Records between 1946 and 1951. O'Day was one of the most important female country singers of the '40s, but she never attained the stardom she deserved because she retired from the business in 1951. Nevertheless, her music has come to be regarded as some of the finest of her era, especially considering how she could make traditional mountain music, both sacred and secular, come alive. Molly O'Day & the Cumberland Mountain Folks preserves her classic sides in a classy fashion, and any musicologist or dedicated fan of string bands needs the compilation in their collection.

Mountain Stage is a two-hour, live music performance radio show staged with a theater audience, produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and distributed by NPR.

The release of ‘Sun Mountain' completes the three volume set released on the Thunderbolt label and featuring the early work of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (see also 'Old Regime' CDTB 040 and 'Stone Piano' CDTB 054). The first nine tracks on this release represent the first known recordings by the duo. Prominent throughout are the distinctive lead vocals and keyboard skills of Donald Fagen with Walter Becker providing the bass line and occasional harmonies. These have been compiled with four tracks each from the earlier two releases. The first four of these are taken from 'Stone Piano' and clearly illustrate the development of artists towards a more complex instrumental backing for their compositions. The second four tracks are taken from ‘Old Regime' and show the full development of the artists who, by this time, are working with an array of fellow musicians including John Discepolo and Kenny Vance on drums, Elliot Randall on guitar, and Denny Dias on bass.

Clifford Jordan - Highest Mountain (1999) {2CD Set, Muse–Camden Deluxe 74321610752 rec 1976-1978}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 804 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 302 Mb
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© 1976-78, 1999 Muse Records / Camden Deluxe / BMG | 74321 610752
Jazz / Hard Bop / Post Bop / Saxophone

An excellent compilation containing all his four Muse albums less the vocal tracks from "Remembering Me-Me". Clifford Jordan really has not received the credit to which he is due , being very much in the shadow of other tenor titans of his generation - but that is a great shame,given the man's undoubted talent and ability. He first came to prominence under the inspired leadership of Charles Mingus in that great man's quintets/sextets of the mid-60's with no lesser band-mates than Eric Dolphy,Johnny Coles and Jaki Byard,and to my mind he certainly more than held his own in that exhalted company.

Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 the third installment from Neil Young's Archives – although through some weird filing system this is Vol. 00, possibly because this dates before either of the previously released volumes in Archives Performance Series – culls highlights from Neil Young's two shows at Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, MI on November 9 and 10, 1968…

Frequently classified as the first album by the group Mountain, which was named after it, Leslie West's initial solo album featured bass/keyboard player Felix Pappalardi, who also produced it and co-wrote eight of its 11 songs, and drummer N.D. Smart II. (This trio did, indeed, tour under the name Mountain shortly after the album's release, even performing at Woodstock, though Smart was replaced by Corky Laing and Steve Knight was added as keyboard player for the formal recording debut of the group, Mountain Climbing!, released in February 1970.) Pappalardi had been Cream's producer, and that power trio, as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, were the models for this rock set, which was dominated by West's throaty roar of a voice and inventive blues-rock guitar playing. Though West had led the Vagrants for years and cut a handful of singles with them, this was his first album release, and it made for an auspicious debut, instantly establishing him as a guitar hero and setting the style of Mountain's subsequent recordings.