Acclaimed composer (A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, Hit Man) and musical maverick Graham Reynolds releases his debut solo album for Fire Records.
A socio-geographic trip along the sierra in your mind, standout title track ‘Mountain (Part 1)’ is filled with romantic orchestral sweeps conjuring up an image of a vast landscape disrupted by a singular peak, while ‘…Part 2’ takes a more jagged path, traversing an angular ridge before steadying itself into a piece of Hermann-esque Hitchcock. ‘Mt Monadnock’ in New Hampshire is namechecked, while the ‘Enchanted Rock’ (a thunderous Einstürzende Neubauten-like reawakening of the senses played out on Graham’s signature booming orchestral drum) stands just outside of Austin, Texas, Reynolds’ home-base for over 30 years.
Composed and performed by Graham Reynolds, with contributions from his rotating cast of musical compadres, the album was produced and mixed by mysterious English duo Peter Talisman. There are surprises throughout the album as Austin neighbour Jad Fair (Half Japanese) pops up with backing vocals along with Italian chanteuse Marta del Grandi whose evocative words on ‘Linger In Silence’ spark a wonderful re-awakening of the exquisite seven-minute stand-out ‘Prophet Harmonic’.
“This album is personal. It starts with Monadnock, the first mountain I ever climbed, up in New England. The first side ends with Enchanted Rock, the first mountain I climbed in my adopted state of Texas. And, though I’ve been releasing music for my whole adult life, this is the first time I’ve had real label support for something of my own, unattached to a film or other media. So, in a way, oddly, it’s my first real solo album” Graham Reynolds.
