Print
Email
Share
Although the various strains of ambient music have their fans, it’s rare that a band crosses over, even to the extent of getting signed to a bigger label and having their album reviewed among the more common indie/rock fare out there. With Choral, Mountains not only crosses that threshold into the wider music fan consciousness, they prove they deserve to be there. After two stellar albums on their own label, their Thrill Jockey debut may be their best yet. Based around heavily manipulated acoustic guitar tones (but including everything from books to ice water as source material), the duo’s blissful drone feels fresh and oddly natural in a genre that at its worst can feel canned and disposable. Choral is by turns euphoric, pastoral, lysergic, and seething as well as a hundred other things, but it’s never for a second less than gorgeous.
Slipped Disc: Mountains – Choral
Albums that missed our Top 60 Albums list, but at least one of our writers loves.
Tagged as: mountains
Related Articles
By Ian Mathers
9 Dec 2009
If you weren't there, this 'live' album is a thing of beauty. If you were, it's a little more frustrating.
By Ian Mathers
8 Jun 2009
Mountains are an experience not quite like anything else the average PopMatters reader is likely to hear and shouldn’t be missed.
By Ian Mathers
9 Apr 2009
The ambient-drone duo make its first classic, in the vein of Eluvium and Stars of the Lid.
Comments
Now on PopMatters
Channel Surfing: Twilight of the Toffs: 'Brideshead Revisited'
Mixed Media: Elijah and Ava Wolf's "Cherry Ripe" Is Truly Sweet
Short Ends and Leader: Head Games: 'Talking Heads: Chronology'
Moving Pixels: Returning to My Own Vomit: Playing 'The Binding of Isaac'
A religious role: Dolores Hart left films to become a nun in the ’60s (PopWire) [Wed, 5:35 pm]
Magic Johnson to launch TV network via Comcast (PopWire) [Wed, 4:35 pm]
Oscars 2012: Who’ll win on Oscar night — and who should (PopWire) [Wed, 3:35 pm]
Black experiences are explored in books for children (PopWire) [Wed, 2:35 pm]
Elijah and Ava Wolf's "Cherry Ripe" Is Truly Sweet (Mixed Media) [Wed, 2:30 pm]
Head Games: 'Talking Heads: Chronology' (Short Ends and Leader) [Wed, 1:50 pm]
It’s pilot season, when network execs hunt for the next big hits (PopWire) [Wed, 1:35 pm]
Companies profiting off aspiring child actors (PopWire) [Wed, 12:35 pm]
When Being Born Somewhere DOESN'T Automatically Make You a Citizen (Mixed Media) [Wed, 12:30 pm]
Oscars 2012: Oscar nod doesn’t mean Oscar bump (PopWire) [Wed, 11:35 am]
Bradley Craft Turns Literary Characters Into Caricatures (Re:Print) [Wed, 11:00 am]
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz: A rare liberal success (PopWire) [Wed, 10:35 am]
Big Star Story to Debut at SXSW Next Month (Mixed Media) [Wed, 10:30 am]
Global economic stress felt in a Mumbai slum (PopWire) [Wed, 9:35 am]
It Was There That We Heard Them: Ten Years of 'Source Tags and Codes' (Sound Affects) [Wed, 9:00 am]
Oscars 2012: Does silence speak, and perchance predict? (PopWire) [Wed, 8:35 am]
Ex-HBO executive, Netflix in talks to produce content, sources say (PopWire) [Wed, 8:04 am]
Going Fast: Explosions in the Sky Announces New Tour Dates (Mixed Media) [Wed, 8:00 am]
China accord makes independents’ day (PopWire) [Wed, 7:30 am]
Returning to My Own Vomit: Playing 'The Binding of Isaac' (Moving Pixels) [Wed, 7:00 am]
- The 10 Best Progressive Rock Albums of the 2000s (Sound Affects)
- Rock Is the New Jazz. Sorry, Rock. (Columns)
- The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
- Bored This Way: The 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Features)
- Love, Death and Bananas: The Early Woody Allen (Features)
- Your Anti-Valentine's Day Playlist. (Mixed Media)
- Van Halen: A Different Kind of Truth (Reviews)
- Black Music, White People / White Music, Black People (Columns)
- Celebrating George Harrison’s 69th Birthday With Seven Underrated Songs (Mixed Media)
- “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
- Pepe Deluxé: Queen of the Wave (Reviews)
- Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature? (Features)
- Rating the Performances at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards (Mixed Media)
- Earth: Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II (Reviews)
- My Indie Is Not a Centerfold, Nor Is It Indie (Features)
- 10 Alternative Cinematic Valentines (Short Ends and Leader)
- Au Revoire Simone's Erika Forster Shows Off Hot Gap Styles with the New Gap Leather Jacket (Mixed Media)
- Au Revoire Simone's Erika Forster Shows Off Hot Gap Styles with the New Gap Striped Sweater (Mixed Media)
- Five for the Power of Spice: Returning to the Golden Era of the Spice Girls (Features)
- Dierks Bentley: Home (Reviews)
- Counterbalance No. 68: 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' (Sound Affects)
- Fearing God, Fearing the Body: The Theology of 'The Binding of Isaac' (Moving Pixels)
- Sleigh Bells: Reign of Terror (Reviews)
- And the Academy Awards Nominees Are… Straight (Columns)
- 20 Questions: Gail Simmons (Features)
- Celebrating the Possibilities of Fiction: A Conversation with Jennifer Egan (Columns)
- After Hurricane Katrina, the Band Plays On: 'Groove Interrupted' (Reviews)
- How Could He?: Exploring Social Issues Through 'Dragon Age II' (Moving Pixels)
- Counterbalance No. 69: Jeff Buckley’s 'Grace' (Sound Affects)
- Digital Comics and the Limits of Sharing (Columns)
- The 10 Best Progressive Rock Albums of the 2000s
- Rock is the New Jazz. Sorry, Rock.
- Celebrating George Harrison’s 69th Birthday With Seven Underrated Songs
- Van Halen: A Different Kind of Truth
- Pepe Deluxé: Queen of the Wave
- Counterbalance No. 69: Jeff Buckley’s Grace
- The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Adaptations of All Time
- How Could He? – Exploring Social Issues Through Dragon Age 2
- Real Life Intensity: A Conversation with Warren Haynes
- Head Games: Talking Heads: Chronology
- Rumer: 10 February 2012 - New York
- Fearing God, Fearing the Body: The Theology of The Binding of Isaac
- Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons on Doc Channel, 2/21
- It Was There That We Heard Them: Ten Years of Source Tags and Codes
- Black Music, White People / White Music, Black People
- Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection
- Texas, Since It Was Mexico: Blue Beetle #6
- American Experience: Clinton Assesses the Comeback Kid, Again
- Sinéad O’Connor: How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
- Saharan Romance and Greek Tragedy: Revisiting The English Patient
- Young Buck: Live Loyal, Die Rich
- Man and Mega Man: Better Living Through Retro Game Demos on YouTube
- 20 Questions: Gail Simmons
- Heartless Bastards: Arrow
- Netflix’s first original series stars Steven Van Zandt as a New York mobster
Recent Posts
Categories
- Artist Directed
- Best of the Year
- Books
- Business
- Comics
- Contests
- Culture
- Culture at Large
- DVDs
- Entertainment
- Events
- Fashion
- Film
- Internet
- List This
- Media
- MP3
- Multimedia
- Music
- New Releases
- Performing Arts
- Photos
- Podcasts
- Politics
- Pop Past
- Premieres
- Science
- Sponsors
- Sports
- Stills
- Stream
- Styld-by
- Technology
- Theatre
- Tour Dates
- Trailer Trash
- Trailers
- Travel
- TV
- Video
- Visual Arts
-
Channel Surfing
all things TV and video -
Condensed Version
visual critique of society/culture
-
Graphically Speaking
the PopMatters comics blog
-
Mixed Media
MP3s, video, trailers and more
-
Moving Pixels
video games, digital arts and e-arts
-
Notes from the Road
on the spot, live event reporting
-
Re:Print
books, authors, literature and publishing
-
Short Ends and Leader
covering all things film
-
Short Takes
short music reviews with audio and video
-
Sound Affects
all things music, audio and video
-
Calls for Papers
PM calls for staff and essays
-
Crazed by the Music
music industry and media from A to Z
-
Marginal Utility
musings and analysis of consumer culture
-
Peripatetic Postcards
traveling the world in literary style
Music Archive
Announcements
