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Mount Alaska Announce Details of New Record

September 20, 2019

Mount Alaska are delighted to announce details of their new record, ‘Wave Atlas: Season One’, released through 251 Records on Friday, November 15th, 2019.

Their new single ‘Back To The Land, My Love’, is out now on 251 Records, a partner label of Faction Records and home to Martin Hayes Quartet, The Redneck Manifesto, and Martin Hayes & Brooklyn Rider.

The album was written, recorded and produced by Stephen Shannon and Cillian Mc Donnell, in Shannon’s Dublin studio, Experimental Audio, and will be available on CD / digital.

The concept for ‘Wave Atlas: Season One’ came from a desire to create a soundtrack for a TV show that doesn’t actually exist,” says Shannon. “I’ve worked on film soundtracks for a few years and really enjoy the process of writing music to picture. It’s a completely different process.” Cillian adds; “The idea of presenting a soundtrack in isolation really appealed to us – it was an interesting challenge to deliver a body of work where the music is front-and-centre, but thenarrative and plot are secondary. So much is left up to the listener …
Wave Atlas: Season One is also an ode to some of our favourite composers: Max Richer, Ólafur Arnalds, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Delia Derbyshire, Rival Consoles and Wendy Carlos,” says Mc Donnell. “Previous Mount Alaska tracks were created via dozens of draft versions, but for this album we decided to create the music quickly, using broad conceptual themes. We decided to restrict ourselves to just a few instruments for the making of this record – it made the process more challenging, and the overall sound more cohesive: a 1982 Roland Juno 60 synthesizer, an old piano, and Cillian’s kick-drum make up roughly 80% of Wave Atlas: Season One, with processed (found), vocal acapellas,” says Shannon.

About the first single, Stephen says; “Sonically, Back to the Land, My Love is a significant departure from previous Mount Alaska releases – it’s built around a melancholic solo piano line and synthesizer arpeggios.

Our influences, listening habits and studio work hasn’t always been represented by the music we release, so Wave Atlas: Season One is a good way of addressing that, and Back To The Land, My Love, is a great way of introducing people to a side of Mount Alaska they rarely get to hear,” says Mc Donnell. “It also leaves the door wide open, creatively and conceptually, for Wave Atlas: Season Two…

Wave Atlas: Season One track-listing:
1. Back to the Land, My Love
2. The Subterranean Heart
3. The Last Time They Met
4. Wave Atlas
5. Far from the Fjord
6. Polar
7. Lunar
8. On This Day, We Knew

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mountalaska
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountalaska/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mountalaska/

Mount Alaska are Stephen Shannon & Cillian Mc Donnell

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