Second single and video off the band’s upcoming album Starkiller and the Banshees;
premiered on Spill Magazine
SARANAC, NY | May 18, 2018 – Taking you to a new level of introspective reflection, upstate NY outfit The Mountain Carol‘s new single and music video “Sway” provide a tasty cut off their upcoming album that will leave you in a state of lucid dreaming. With shoe-gaze style staccato guitar licks, electronic drum beats, and the glistening unique sheen of a Wurlitzer electric piano to complete, the vocals of Bruce Wilson will guide you on your way. Spill Magazine, who premiered the single and its accompanying video, described it as “a raw, beautiful and powerfully reflective piece.”
With an atmospheric, electro-pop core to their sound, The Mountain Carol showcase their talented song-writing and versatility with the new track. Sauntering in to your consciousness, “Sway” builds slow and steady; it comes as the second single off the band’s upcoming debut album Starkiller and the Banshees. The band shared, “This is one of the first ‘new’ Mountain Carol songs. Conceived by the riverside one early morning, “Sway” was originally much faster with a guitar part sounding a little more like The Mountain Carol’s other single, “Dino.” This track not only showcases Bruce’s alien-soul keyboard skill but does so through Wayward Sound Studio’s beautiful Wurlitzer electric piano.”
Falling in line with the elusively vague storylines of previous videos, the video for “Sway” only proves to heighten the surreal, dream-like quality of their music. Following a character in a bar, the viewer is perfectly impressed with the feeling of being out in public, surrounded by people, yet very much alone and immersed in one’s own thoughts. He begins to envision scenes of nature and the mountains, shaking them off until he is fully immersed. “This video is a great example of the power of The Mountain Carol’s three-pointed pyramid structure. Inspired by Bruce’s reflections on the music and lyrics, interpreted by Austtin, and actualized by Matt Hall, “Sway” draws its essence from the same well as the rest of the Mountain Carol canon. Disconnected illusions fight to suppress an irresistible, perhaps prehistoric memory.” Featuring cameos from across the band’s hometown of Plattsburgh, NY, the band self-shot the production, showcasing further talent with DIY originality and fierce loyalty to their craft. In similar vein to their DIY-ethos and ambiguously cryptic riddles often layered in their work, the cover art for the single provides another taunting mystery, displaying a girl standing at a bar, with her face blurred – perhaps a lost memory, or just another dream.
Starkiller and the Banshees will be released via Third Eye Industries on June 1, 2018 and is available for pre-order now, in digital and CD formats through the band’s Bandcamp. The band will celebrate that night with a show at Monopole Bar in Plattsburgh, NY. “Sway” and “Dino” are availble everywhere now for stream and purchase, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp.
UPCOMING SHOWS
June 1 – Monopole Bar, Plattsburgh, NY [Album Release Show]
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FOLLOW THE MOUNTAIN CAROL
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ABOUT THE MOUNTAIN CAROL: Quite possibly the most important band to come out of the North Country, The Mountain Carol broke all pre-existing rules of regional success with their atmospheric, jazzy electro-pop and quickly found themselves at the top of the heap with few true contenders.
Forged from the ashes of Townshendesque power-pop group The Tavi in 2011 and led by two reclusive musical stalwarts from the backwater town of Saranac, NY, a name more associated with a popular beer than popular music, the project took shape after guitarist Austtin Petrashune returned home from a hiatus-causing 2-year stint as a costumed fiddle player in a Hong Kong amusement park. Meanwhile, in between shifts at his day job as a parcel delivery driver, keyboardist and primary songwriter Bruce Wilson had forsaken the drums to hone his chops on the piano, developing a playing style reminiscent of jazz maestro Dave Brubeck while retaining the best of his long-beloved 60s pop influences, in particular the compositional ambition of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, crafting danceable epics accompanied by the quaint drum machine of a broken Casio MT-500 keyboard.
After a period of in-studio experimentation, gig-seeking frustration, and failed attempts at past-present reconciliation, Petrashune and Bruce struck oil when they reached out to upstate indie impresario Matt Hall, a multi-talented and well-connected Syracuse-cum-Plattsburgh native creative known for his innumerable bootstrapped musical releases under several aliases including, but not limited to, Marco Polio, Chakra Abuse, and Antwon Levee (not to mention his notoriety as auteur of the satirical online variety show affectionately titled “TRASHburgh”). Although a seasoned gigging drummer with Adirondack punk firebrands Comrade Nixon, infamous defunct rap collective Plattsburgh Home Team, and a short service in retro yawn-rock royalty Broken Arrow Hearts, among many others, Hall left his comfort zone to accept a position as The Mountain Carol’s percussionist, manager, and, for their first demo, de-facto producer. A Roland Octapad now pollinating The Mountain Carol’s spacious downtempo surf-funk with heavy accents equally inspired by dub and doom metal, the group was able expand their tonal palette far beyond their local contemporaries while keeping the edgy, improvisatory sensibility congruent with both the stoned Bonnaroo attendee and discerning hipster alike. While the band’s eponymous debut EP was released in a relatively straightforward manner, The Mountain Carol seems intent on manipulating the modern music consumer, releasing a trickle of live recordings, music videos, and cryptic artistic statements through a variety of media channels, and often first via their mysterious subscription fan-club “The Divine Council.” Their debut album, Starkiller and the Banshees, has been announced for release in summer 2018 on Third Eye Industries.
