Levitation Mist by Strange Mountain

From Illuminated Paths: "Hailing From Jakarta, Indonesia, ambient all-star Strange Mountain (Marcel Thee) is famous for reprocessing music through analog reel to reel tape. About as analog as it gets "

Ross Auger (rossauger.com) - The other day I was soaking in Strange Mountain’s Levitation Mist** on my way to work when the choice of instruments really hit me. Every time an artist sits down (or stands up for that matter…) to create, there is a choice of what medium to produce with. I really believe that this choice goes over looked. In example, Levitation Mist opens up with an organ warbling through field recordings. Had it been clean piano or a saxophone playing the same notes, I doubt the album’s compositions would be as captivating. If you remember, a few years ago scene kids (who described themselves as metal) covered pop songs with drop tuned guitars. As uninteresting as I may find the initial pop song, I still found them more palatable than a cover with different choices of instruments. In summary, keep in mind that artists could use any instrument, any paint brush, any lyric but the one they chose makes them the creditable artist they are. If you are unfamiliar with Strange Mountain, his music is of ambient drifts of delayed acoustic guitars and otherworldly keys. There is a sense that this music comes from a planet of lush overlooks into trees and soft rain. If you are looking for music to suck you into a creative zone and keep you there comfortably, I highly recommend digging in to his bandcamp.

Raised by Gypsies http://raisedbygypsies.blogspot.com/2014/09/cassette-review-strange-mountain.html - "As I find most of the Illuminated Paths cassettes to be “vaporwave”, which I am still trying to define exactly, I noticed that as with Height with Friends this particular release by Strange Mountain isn’t really what I would consider to be vaporwave as much or at least not what I think of it as sounding like because it is a bit slower and ambient.

While the synth is certainly powerful, there are quieter moments and it is more relaxing perhaps than anything else. There are sounds of glasses being tinged and it brings out a level of FNL at that. Beats surface towards the end of Side A, but they are at a much slower pace than you’d expect (probably) and they have this ohms in them which make it all that much more like meditation than dance music. As Side A comes to a close, one of the last things I hear is an almost slowed down version of an Ace of Base song and that simply amazes me.

On Side B, we have a similar feel to Side A though somehow this seems to be filled with a bit more despair. I cannot describe why, but the music just takes that sort of turn here and maybe I didn’t notice it on A but it comes out so much clearer. There also exists this echoing synth sound which reminds me of a rock being skipped across a lake only, you know, with music instead of little kerplunk splashes.

I’ve seen the name Strange Mountain around and I do believe this is my first time actually hearing them though. While I was expecting something more like Saint Pepsi- and I don’t know, maybe some of their other cassettes are more like that- I must say that I am most impressed by this and find it to be good music for a bath."

Buy tape here http://illuminatedpaths.bandcamp.com/album/levitation-mist

Tracklist

1.	Archaic Dawn	5:04

2.	Gifted Souls	2:32

3.	Sad Canyons	2:48

4.	Millenium Swim	2:35

5.	Meditative Moon	3:02

6.	Levitation Mist	4:46

7.	Elder Wave	1:51

8.	Bronz'd Feels	2:43

Credits

released April 5, 2014

Written and Recorded by Marcel Thee
Mastered by Arbor
Cover illustration by Timothy Henry

License