Three years ago, the duo formed of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp delivered their second album as Mountains, following a very promising debut published the year before. Since, the pair have focused on various solo endeavours and taken some time off. Now, following a very limited live LP released last year, Mountains are back with their third album, Choral, and will be spending part of the year on the road. We caught up with them a few weeks before the new album is out to discuss the new album and the process leading to it, how their respective musical projects inform their common work and Italian music of the seventies.

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AUS
After All
FLAU09
Flau 2008
11 Tracks. 56mins06secs

The lines traced between After All, Yasuhiko Fukuzono’s sixth full-length effort, and his previous works are distant and intimate at once. The album is indeed leagues away from the staggering beat patterns and temperamental pulses that sparked a wealth of variation in the homemade blueprints of past recordings now arrogated to the archives.

After All is no longer predominantly instrumental, but a thoroughly vocal-based work, which raises little melodic buds from the underlying networks of piano and computer. At the same time, intimacy is shared between the two periods inasmuch as the crafty yet elegant programming remains. Continue Reading »

RICH JOHNSON
Up The Turret Mil
LLCD004
Loyal Label 2008
11 Tracks. 43mins09secs

Where exactly does Rich Johnson fits is anyone’s guess. On his debut album, published on Eivind Opsvik’s Loyal Label, he flirts as much with experimental electronica as he does with avant-garde jazz. A trumpeter by trade, Johnson also works with acoustic guitars and pianos which he blends in with electronics and samples. With influences stretching from Bob Dylan to Low and Fugazi, the scope of his work could only be wide.

Sole operator on board, Johnson is found here occupying a ground stretching from the more experimental side of Rune Grammofon (think Supersilent or Humcrush) to more angular electronic forms, sometimes close to musique concrète. Continue Reading »