In this series of posts, we are sharing our own personal thoughts on our Molehills out of Mountains album. After Sam Kipling last week, this week here are Sam Lawrence’s reflections on the album.
This album has been forever in the making, or it certainly feels like it. It might not be perfect but it’s pretty good and certainly the best body of work I have ever recorded. I think it’s unusual in this day and age in that the quality is consistent and it exists as a coherent body of work – there is no filler and I find it hard to pick a stand out track, though a few feel like they have some particular magic for me. There is a depth to these recordings – dig deeply and at times there is interplay between up to 5 stringed instruments – complimentary weaving not competitive wanking. It’s clear at least to me that every detail of the arrangements has been picked up delicately, held to the light, turned this way and that way and then placed carefully down on a clean, brushed, purple, well-lit velvet cushion. Or instead chucked heartlessly into the bin to remain forever in dirty musical landfill… There might be flaws here and there but I don’t believe that any detract in a overwhelming way. Over-polished music sucks anyway, doesn’t it? Which is not to say that I think that everyone will like it. I don’t.
I am listening to this album on vinyl – basically this means that according to my lights I have “made it” . . . We have a “record out” and a publishing deal, and a worldwide distribution deal. Funny how the industry has changed, we are of course totally skint and largely unknown too . . . The recordings sound soooo much warmer on vinyl than CD. I have a funny feeling in my bones that this review? retrospective? recounting? response? will take pretty much exactly the same amount of time to write as the LP takes to play through . . .
Molehills Out Of Mountains opens with the track
Cry For The City
Perhaps the intro is an ill-judged fleet-foxes-in-a-cave moment but we like it so who cares. The instrumental tune at the end of the song is called “The Cobblestones Jig” and is played on harmonising mandolin/electric guitar in the style of Thin Lizzy, which is a sound you won’t hear from many beat combos of the present day. I don’t think that we are a miserable band by the way – though I can understand if you do – a thoughtful song like this ends on an up, lyrically and musically. I’m not going to try and explain these songs though (and I didn’t write them anyway) – I believe now that that is always a mistake. If there is meaning and feeling in a song, then the listener will find their own. It’s pretty much irrelevant if it coincides or not with the meaning invested into the song by the writer.
Don’t Be Scared 48
Some people have picked this as a potential single, and a particularly strong song. I am going to have to be contrary and say that it’s one of my least favourites. I do think the middle 8 (chorus?) is super though. Maybe if I sang more in tune? This seems like a good point to mention that at no point on this record have we resorted to autotune on the vocals – I think that if we had, Albert would have been waiting down a dark alley with a sock full of wet sand. Oh I do like the outro of this song very much – especially my bouzouki. Ruth sings angelically on the outro and I’m sure she’ll be VERY glad to have me point that out…
Wilful Missing 