Conversations that circulate around artists and albums and songs have always been a crucial part of the music experience. That said, the extent to which online chatter and claims-jumping have become more important than actually listening to the new album by, say, M.I.A. or Wavves, is kind of disheartening. So it's a relief to hear a record that's more fun to listen to than it could ever be to talk about. Mountain Man's got its small share of blog buzz, but Made the Harbor evokes, and even seems to encourage, private appreciation.
I guess if you really wanted to incite a message board snipe-fest among authenticity hardliners, you could point out that the three women who record old-timey-souding folk as Mountain Man would never fool an actual mountain man. Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Amelia Randall Meath met as students at Bennington, and there's a direct line to be drawn from their exquisitely arranged three-part harmonies to the a cappella group sounds that waft through Eastern seaboard college quads. Instead of Depression-era Americana, Fleet Foxes are Mountain Man's best RIYL, and they're sure to appeal to anyone who misses the Be Good Tanyas. The trio, however, appear to have a greater investment in mood and milieu than in crafting a traditionally structured album or even fully fleshed-out songs.
Harbor is their second, but first widely available, release and it collects songs that loosely riff on Appalachian folk in ways similar to those of fellow Vermonter Sam Amidon. Nothing on Harbor is a reverent reading of an open-source song, but a track like "Sewee Sewee" sounds like it was unearthed in a Carolina Confederate graveyard. Elsewhere, Mountain Man refer to "the mighty Mississippi" and "fair young maidens" and ask a lover to "draw me still," a balmy archaism that would sound contrived in everyday conversation, but is pretty fantastic in context. Modern sensibilities aren't out of place, though. "Dog Song" is a provocative three-minute roll in the hay, and "Soft Skin" is frankly sensual both in words and come-hither inflection.
But you don't love a record like this for its lyrics-- or for instrumentation that rarely gets more complicated than plucking out basic chords. It's Mountain Man's bell-toned voices volleying off the walls of an abandoned ice cream parlor where the album was recorded that sells it. If you find yourself indifferent to "Babylon", an electrifying a cappella arrangement of Psalm 137, you may want to check your pulse. Then there are the spaces and silences-- between tracks, verses, even notes-- that the trio occasionally fills with false starts, deep breaths, and laughter, but mostly let be. At its best, Harbor feels like a private performance of friends only out to please themselves. But if you promise to sit quietly and listen, you're more than welcome to stay.
