Photo: Jon Leone
In cinematic terms — and Mountains is as cinematic as any musical outfit currently crafting soundscapes — it’s as if David Lynch and his longtime composer Angelo Badalamenti wrestled the eternally ethereal Tree of Life away from Terence Malick and injected a serious dose of mood-altering menace into its penultimate scene. It’s Centralia’s only discernable use of traditional electric guitar, which makes its presence all the more unexpected and curious on an album laced with cello, organ, acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizers and various other electronically manipulated sources.
Of course, unexpected is what this Brooklyn-based outfit consisting of longtime friends Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp is all about.
“Having something be very recognizable, like an acoustic guitar, and have it become abstracted into something else — I think that such alchemy was always our goal,” Holtkamp told the Village Voice in 2011.
Such alchemy is readily apparent on Centralia (the duo’s fifth full-length effort since 2005), another compelling entry in an ongoing sonic journey that shows no signs of stagnation.MOUNTAINS perform Thursday, Feb. 28 at Mayday in Northside. Check out performance times and get venue details here.
