September 6, 2007

Band To Watch: Mountain Home

Wow, there's something about Band To Watch and boy/girl duos: Recently, it was Misha and To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie and now it's the gorgeous, slow-release folk sadness of Mountain Home. The San Diego band could maybe remind you of those Beach House kids or Brightblack Morning Light, but this is free-folk of the breeziest sort, not Galaxie 500 stargazing or nighttime swamp soul. And, well, about the twosome thing? ... Band photos can be deceiving.

Press releases and MySpace may rep Mountain Home as 1+1 songwriting team, but on record Joshua Blatchley (vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium) and Kristin Sherer (dulcimer, etc) stretch to a six piece including Ilya Monosov (banjo, acoustic guitar, hurdy gurdy), Margaret Wienk of Fern Knight, Espers' man man Greg Weeks, and after listening to "The Sparrow" from their five-song debut, we bet you can guess the lead singer...

Mountain Home - "The Sparrow" (MP3)

That's right, OKX grad and all-around Stereofave Marissa Nadler handles main vocal duties on Mountain Home's five tracks. Who knows where the band will go next, and just who it'll include, because the lineup seems to shift like the seasons, but we spoke with Nadler and she said she's permanent and on these pieces. It's great hearing her crystalline melancholia cast against wandering, openly structured, classically tuned atmospherics. One lucky song, "Battle We Were," cascades for more than 10 minutes, and all the songs outside of "The Sparrow" bleed to seven. Absolutely love the spacious leisure.

Furthering the family affair, Mountain Home is being released on Language Of Stone, the brand new Philly-based label run by the aforementioned Greg Weeks and Jessica Weeks (of Woodwose). The Weeks' records will be distributed via Drag City.