‘Tis the season for country-themed side projects. Just a few weeks before Mt. Desolation’s release, Tired Pony – another indie rock supergroup with rootsy inclinations – issued their own debut. What was billed as a country album turned out to be little more than standard pop/rock, though, which makes Mt. Desolation’s debut – recorded by a loose group of British musicians, with Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin serving as co-captains – all the more charming. The best songs here sound like genuine Americana, not pop songs dressed up in acoustic guitars and cowboy shirts, and even the filler material has a cohesion that’s rare for most first-time supergroups. “The Midnight Ghost,” with its barroom ambience and harmony vocals, is a woozy Western ballad that takes its cues from Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, while “Platform 7” – featuring the Killers’ Ronnie Vannucci on percussion – is bar band country-rock, filled with all the twangy trimmings that the Killers attempted (with mixed results) on Sam’s Town.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, A Silver Mt. Zion (just one of its many names) came to life in 1999 as a project for Godspeed You! Black Emperor member Efrim Menuck in his attempt to learn to score music. The original idea was pushed aside, and the project would go on to become a group setting, and was more in touch with the idea of the organic growth and exploration of music than the heavily composed and arranged theoretical work of Godspeed. Inspired to record an album of the music that had been made, Menuck built up the first version of A Silver Mt. Zion, taking on violinist Sophie Trudeau and bassist Thierry Amar, both known as collaborators in the Godspeed family. The band made its live debut in 1999 and released its first album, He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms…, on Constellation in 2000. Still known as A Silver Mt. Zion, the band expanded its membership in 2000 – adding cellist Beckie Foon, guitarist Ian Ilavsky, and violinist Jessica Moss – which led to the first of many name changes.
Robert Walter continues to balance on twin peaks of dance and jazz cultures with Giving Up the Ghost, whose breezy grooves cool sizzling keyboard and sax lines down to a simmer. The band includes alumni from Black Eyed Peas, T.J. Kirk, and Walter's own Greyboy Allstars, which means that the playing is consistently top-notch. There's enough angularity in the arrangements to bear occasional comparison to Medeski, Martin & Wood.
During its four albums, Out of the Blue was the perfect representative of the Young Lions, featuring Art Blakey-type hard bop by up-and-coming players. Not an innovative group by any means, O.T.B. did give the musicians an opportunity to be showcased in the early stages of their career. For this live concert, two Bud Powell songs ("Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Blue Pearl") are performed by pianist Harry Pickens (in fine form), bassist Kenny Davis (a recent replacement for Bob Hurst) and drummer Ralph Peterson (who would soon be heading his own band). The second half of the program has three group originals, all previously recorded but here stretched out a bit, performed by the same rhythm section plus trumpeter Michael Mossman, altoist Kenny Garrett and Ralph Bowen on tenor. Fine straight-ahead music.
London’s Mt. Wolf have experienced much since their early days as a band – line-up changes, enviable hype and interest and, most of all, a sense of expectation that has never left them. With upcoming debut album “Aetherlight” set to not only meet but exceed those tall expectations, today they release the second track from the record, and the first single proper in the outstanding “Heavenbound”. Owing a melodic debt to the literate, songcraft of Echo & The Bunnymen and The National while retaining the sky-scraping atmospherics that have become the band’s trademark, the record captures them at perhaps their most anthemic yet.