W&H have championed North Wales/ Liverpool/ Czech alliance MOUNTAINEERS pretty ceaselessly over the past couple of years and observed contentedly as they notched up glorious creative successes such as the "Self-Catering" EP and their fine "Messy Century" debut album along the way.
So the fact their label Mute had unceremoniously dumped them was hard to comprehend at first, especially as Mute have themselves ceaselessly championed underdogs from Fad Gadget to Wire and The Residents over the years. Significantly, though, Mute has recently been swallowed up by the EMI umbrella, which - it seems - is ultimately why Mountaineers didn't make the grade when the auditors came in.
No matter. The band have since found a sympathetic home with quality Manchester indie label Northern Ambition and with this new, bizarrely-titled 4-track EP "Motions Of Interplanetary Dust" go some way in reminding us why we took them to our heart to begin with.
It's a re-invigorated Mountineers who are out to scale the peaks these days, too. The EMI-related upheaval sadly forced sample meister Tomas Kelar to relocate back to his native Czech Republic, but his place has been tangentially filled by talented NYC drummer Trevor Gerrard and his input ensures Mountaineers sound more live and muscular than ever before.
And, judging by the four songs here, it suits them down to the ground. Opening track "Spoke Into The Future" is likeably quirky, Pulp-ish pop, aided and abetted by Gerrard's impressive, Keith Moon-style bombast and laced with a spicy dash of Northern soul. Heavier and more direct than of yore, it still nods to both the analogous past and the digital future and is a great point of re-entry for this oddball trio.
|
Typically, they continue on to wilfully explore any tangents they wish. "Everything" is a wobbly, keyboard-based skank underpinning Alex Germains' junior Tom Waits vocal which mutates into a faux-burlesque and cocks a snook in the direction of the Super Furries: an accusation that could also be flung (favourably) at the ensuing "I Could Go Anywhere With You." Regardless of that, its' dopey wisdom is infectious, plaintive and something you'll want to return to again and again.
If anything, though, closing track "Do You Know, Do You Know" is the best of all. This little critter revels in its' widescreen sunburst of an opening and soon sounds like charming, fractured pop: gentle of verse and brash of chorus and a surefire winner all round.
Mountaineers may have suffered the indignity of being dropped, but it seems EMI's loss is our gain, for instead of licking their wounds and slinking away with their tail between their legs, they've dusted themselves down and have come back sounding fresher than ever. Just goes to show The Man can't keep a good band down, despite holding the keys to the exchequer.
|
