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ReleaseProduct
Made the Harbor
Artist
Mountain Man
Label
Partisan Records
Catalogue Number
PTSN012
Release Date
10 July 2010

The music of Mountain Man (aka Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath) is nestled in the tradition of American folk, but shoots like diamond dust out of that nest into the high, wide atmosphere. Their songs are shaped by three searching voices, encompassing harmonies and a shared belief in and love of the world.

Recorded in an old ice cream parlour from the turn of the 20th century, each track from Made the Harbor is imbued with the likes of warm breaths, creaking of floors, soft thumping of hands against their bodies, the clearing of their throats, or the false start of a tune, evoking the feeling of being in the room with the band as the record plays, demanding intimacy between the art and its listener.

The girls themselves offer the following snapshots of how some of these songs came to be:

“Dog Song” Molly wrote the dog song while visiting her best friend Ally in New Orleans. She was feeling fairly lovesick and lost in tropical chaos. Ally’s living room floor was covered in potting soil, small seeds and larger green leaves (which could easily have been made into wings or a boat) and a guitar with only three top strings. With the help of the guitar, Molly’s questions came out to comfort her, to tell the fall’s unfamiliarly warm night air “I belong too”, making the Dog Song.

“Soft Skin” Soft Skin is a series of questions following the first line of the song, “I’ve got soft skin, are you gonna let me in?” It plays off the associations between women, their soft skin, and vulnerability, or openness within (sexual) relationships (Molly’s generalization). Soft Skin is meant to question the origins and entanglements of the desire for violence in sex (socialization?), as well as the blurry lines between love, lust and gender roles as played out through ‘intimacy’. Enjoy.

“Mouthwings” Mouthwings is a song about creating for the love you will eventually receive, as opposed to loving the creation itself. It is also about being a mother, or what amelia thinks being a mother might feel like. Amelia wrote this song in her backyard one spring afternoon while the neighbors were yelling and the cat would not leave her alone.

“Sewee Sewee” Sewee Sewee happened to Alex in her sleep, at least some of it. She woke up in the middle of the night thinking she had written the perfect song, but all she could remember in the morning was, “sewee sewee, we traveled far on this road we’re on.”

“Animal Tracks” Alex wrote Animal Tracks in her tiny, wonderfully bright room at Bennington College. Spring had finally arrived after months of cold and darkness. Fresh indoors from a twilight walk, she spent a lovely, solitary evening listening to the peepers near the pond, and to the wind rustling the dark night through the open window. And what popped out but Animal Tracks!

Made the Harbor is filled with wind, bellowing sea lions, and sand dollars from past loves and current sisters. It is an album to swim home to, and to sail away with as it grazes the horizon with its sails.

TRACKLIST

  1. Buffalo
  2. Animal Tracks
  3. White Heron
  4. Mouthwings
  5. Dog Song
  6. Soft Skin
  7. How'm I Doin'
  8. Arabella
  9. Sewee Sewee
  10. Loon Song
  11. Honey Bee
  12. Babylon
  13. River

Standard Black Vinyl includes Digital Download Card.

Released July 10, 2010

Digital Tracklist

  1. 1 01 Buffalo 1:55 Buy

    01 Buffalo

  2. 2 02 Animal Tracks 2:10 Buy

    02 Animal Tracks

  3. 3 03 White Heron 2:33 Buy

    03 White Heron

  4. 4 04 Mouthwings 2:20 Buy

    04 Mouthwings

  5. 5 05 Dog Song 3:11 Buy

    05 Dog Song

  6. 6 06 Soft Skin 2:03 Buy

    06 Soft Skin

  7. 7 07 How'm I Doin 2:39 Buy

    07 How'm I Doin

  8. 8 08 Arabella 2:20 Buy

    08 Arabella

  9. 9 09 Sewee Sewee 2:11 Buy

    09 Sewee Sewee

  10. 10 10 Loon Song 4:09 Buy

    10 Loon Song

  11. 11 11 Honeybee 1:40 Buy

    11 Honeybee

  12. 12 12 Babylon 1:41 Buy

    12 Babylon

  13. 13 13 River 2:25 Buy

    13 River

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