Peak performance

>>Psych-rockers Black Mountain reach
new heights with their sophomore
release, In the Future

PICKS AND SCALES: Black Mountain

By JONATHAN CUMMINS

In 2005, a small band from Vancouver dropped one of the best Canadian debut records in recent memory and, along with like-minded bands like Comets on Fire, helped make “psychedelic” an underground music buzzword again. Black Mountain’s debut toyed with krautrock grooves and used a myriad of hallucinogenic colours that stood up defiantly against the angular guitars and dance-punk of the day. Fully deserving their accolades, the band even flirted with mainstream success by being hand-picked to open for three weeks of dates with avowed Black Mountain fanatics Coldplay. It seemed like the world was theirs for the taking and then… not a peep.

“We did all of this touring and the label really wanted a record out right away,” says co-vocalist Amber Webber, “but when we went into the studio after the tour and recorded three songs, it just became apparent we didn’t have it in us. I guess we had some success or whatever, but we really needed to just take some time off for a year and do some side projects, or go out into the woods to get uninhibited.”

Webber and her fellow mountaineers set the band aside and released side projects under the names of Blood Meridian, Pink Mountaintops and Lightning Dust over the one-year break. It seems after their extended holiday, the band hit the studio for their follow-up rejuvenated, reenergized and fully focused. Their new album, In the Future, has the band sounding more like a solid unit, compared with their first record; the songs take chances, though they never become rudderless, and remain galvanized in their intentions. The line-up of the band for the debut was only finalized days before tape started rolling, and it could be argued that the record was mainly the effort of head Mountain man Steve McBean.

In the Future is far different. It may still stem from McBean’s rough sketches, but definitely allows room to play on the individual strengths of each member. “Having done other things,” says Webber, “I think we were able to come back to Black Mountain and really put a lot of heart into it. I’m really blown away with the stuff we come up with when we get together. On the first record, we were all kind of shy, but we’ve grown really comfortable with each other and we just feel a lot freer now. We were just ready to really give ’er.”

With all eyes on the band from the very beginning, and not being very forthcoming in interviews, Black Mountain quickly sowed the seeds of Internet-driven myths and misconceptions. Some of the more popular ones claimed that the band all lived together in a commune called the Black Mountain Army (not true), or that Webber and McBean were actually siblings (wrong). My personal favourite, which still exists in their Wikipedia entry, is that they were named after a big block of hash (one could only hope it’s true).

“For a while, all of that stuff was getting pretty irritating, but we can find the humour in it too. We still get the drug references all the time, and get categorized in that stoner-rock thing. We’ve never been one of those ‘we love weed’ kind of bands, but maybe because we have spacey keyboards or some psychedelic parts, we do get a lot of potheads out to shows. I guess that one’s alright.”

With Bon Iver and Quest for Fire
at la Sala Rossa on Friday,
Feb. 29, 9 p.m., $15