Escapism isn't a dirty word.
For a magic trick try this for size: in your Melbourne living room take some computer jiggery-pokery, a couple of old organs and synths, and some instruments hailing from the days of yore (guitar, bass guitar, jews harp, recorder, sitar). Add some found sounds and shake vigorously in the second half of 2004. Mix carefully in March 2005 and hey! Presto! You've created Mountains In The Sky's 'Celestial Son'.
Mountains In The Sky is music you half-hear in your dreams. It lifts musical elements from the everyday and constructs kaleidoscopic, intimate, cut'n'paste pastiches that are as elusively foreign as they are somewhat familiar.
Main man John Lee's life has been steeped in music for many years- as a fan, collector and musician. Most recently he's been treading the boards as keyboard player, sample person and guitarist for Sally Seltmann and her New Buffalo live band. In another life you may have heard him out Djing at various nightspots in and around Melbourne and prior to that as member of Geelong band Honeysuckle.
'Celestial Son' is the culmination of a lifetime as a music enthusiast distilled into thirty odd minutes of sonic bliss. Tagging musical lynchpins and trendy influences goes against the spirit of this release - plug in your headphones, look up to the sky and pick out your own cloud.
You may very well hear washes of skittering orchestra stabs, the singing/swinging of a country gate, no-brain bleeps of early Sheffield house, celestial choirs and splashes of psychedelia. Yes, it's all in there for you to discover, as disorientating and delightful as stumbling across a smoky cabaret bar hidden at the back of a temple in the snow-capped Himalayas.
Celestial Son
Mountains In The SkyTrifekta,
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