A Mountain of One - Collected Works

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  • When we think of dancing we tend to think of all-out, sweating, jacking obliviousness. But there’s another type of dancing - that eyes-shut, arms outstretched, palms up, spinning round slowly on a beach moment which is the reason Balearic music exists as a genre. In those moments emotion is more key than rhythm, and the songs that really imprint on your memory are the ones that draw you down into a wealth of detail, not necessarily the big hooks and forceful rhythms that matter in dark basements. A Mountain of One are possibly the first band since The Beloved’s heyday to directly address this niche in dance music with a whole album. The Balearic DJ’s modus operandi has usually been to comb through every genre looking for those perfect beach songs (80s synth pop being particularly fertile ground). But this year, possibly sparked by the general DJ Harvey love, there have been a spate of overtly Balearic disco releases, with A Mountain of One squarely at the forefront. The thing that I love most about this album is simply that it really does sound good outdoors. So much modern music sounds really tinny and synthetic when played on a crappy boombox against the backdrop of nature in all its glory, but this is considerate and organic enough to nicely complement even the most beautiful scenery. The sounds are soft and natural (flamenco guitar!) and swell gently, ebbing and flowing. These tunes are like spirals – your attention is inevitably drawn deeper and deeper to the exclusion of all else. Sitting here in front of a mechanically flickering screen in a sterile office it makes me yearn (even more than usual) to not have a job and to spend all my time on a beach. There’s a laziness to the way the melodies unfold and meander that makes the daily grind seem not just unpleasant but pointless too. It’s worth mentioning that A Mountain of One are a band. This is not an insignificant point – intricate and multi-threaded songs like these can really only be cooked up by several humans working together in harmony. It’s got to be a good thing for electronic music that today’s technology more than ever allows people to collaborate meaningfully and break loose from the plonky structure that sequencers impose on music. Those of us not blessed with a round-the-year beach existence should also probably note that this is an ideal chill-out album. Even if the phrase ‘chill-out’ make you cringe (yeah, me too) don’t be afraid: this really isn’t, by and large, bland tasteful crap. There are moments and elements (shuffly beats!) that do recall all those tedious trip-hop moments we’ve all been subjected to, but there is a hallucinatory depth here and enough inspiration to lift it above the Lemon Jelly clones. I can’t help but mention the one really awful moment – ‘People Without Love’ is some kind of throwback to agit-prop rave proselytizing with a highly embarrassing vocal (“People without love, strangers to the beat”) accompanying unsuccessful doomy atmospherics. This contrasts with the stand-out moments, such as a cover of Ginny’s ‘Can’t be Serious’ (popularized on Royksopp’s ‘Back to Mine’, but first unearthed by, of course, Harvey on his ‘Sarcastic Disco’ compilation) which genuinely does improve on the original. But my personal favourites are ‘Innocent Line’ and ‘Innocent Line Reprise’ which are extended proggy, jazzy jams, and unapologetically so. If you have a low noodling tolerance, forget it, but if you enjoy the odd cosmic voyage this will definite get your rockets going. One does feel that there’s a little too much reverence paid to Balearic history here, and indeed that’s the only possible explanation for ‘People Without Love’. The mood is also a little too serious and head-nodding at times – you can imagine this band wear really bad hats – and it’s definitely going to draw its fair share of tedious hippy admirers. However I’d like to believe in a better world which involves beaches and cute people in swimwear on holidays that never end so I’m going to ignore my cynical side and embrace this album for its moments of quiet euphoria.
  • Tracklist
      01 Ride 02 Warping Of The Clock 03 Freefall 04 Can't Be Serious 05 Our Eyes 06 Innocent Line 07 Innocent Reprise 08 Your Love Over Gold 09 People Without Love 10 Arc Of Abraham 11 Here Goes Nothing 12 Brown Piano
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