Some time in 2011, I learned that Helium frontwoman Mary Timony had recorded a number of solo albums. This discovery revived my interest in Helium's music and compelled me to seek out her solo efforts.
What fascinates me about Timony's music is her knack for crafting unusual and utterly bewitching compositions. Her tendency towards unconventional guitar tunings lends her songs an undefinable quality. One thing I always found particularly intriguing was her affinity towards medieval-esque melodies; this was something she only flirted with in Helium, but explored a lot more earnestly on her first two solo albums. As a result, both of these records sound like lo-fi indie rock as interpreted by someone from the Middle Ages.
I discovered 'Mountains', and the follow up 'The Golden Dove' around the same time and played them almost non-stop for nearly an entire year, and whilst 'The Golden Dove' is just as good as this album (if slightly more polished in terms of overall production), because 'Mountains' was my first foray into Timony's dark indie fairytale world, it's the one that's stayed with me the most. It also seemed to resonate perfectly with how I was feeling when I first heard it.
So, sometime in 2011, it was winter, nearing the end a year that felt like being repeatedly kicked in the nuts, in the midst of family troubles and relationship turbulence, my salvation came in threes. Another Murakami novel (this time, the recently released and utterly fantastic 1Q84), a new but valued friend whom I unwittingly found myself getting closer to than I ever anticipated, and this album. What sticks out in my mind is the synchronicitous cadence of these three happenings, and the poetic manner in which they had coalesced.
The night of 11/11/11, I had a strange night vision where I felt myself almost being tugged from my own body under that evening's full moon. The following day, I received a text from the aforementioned friend that served to draw her and I closer in subtle ways. It felt as though the night before, I'd stepped into a parallel world that presented an unexpected fork in the road. In 1Q84, I read of its main protagonist stepping into a parallel world, a world where a strange, ominous second moon hung in the sky. To this day, the medieval strings (lute?) that open 'Poison Moon' from 'Mountain' briefly take me back to that place in my mind, and the story itself. The poison moon of the song, recalling the second moon from the book, and the moon I slept under that November night. It was as though the book, this album and my life had somehow merged in a surreal kind of way that, with some irony, would not be out of place in a Murakami novel.
The book's second protagonist visited a strange town to re-align himself and evaluate his circumstances, I visited my friend (also out of town) as she helped me with some things. It was good having someone I could talk to so easily, it helped me re-align and evaluate my circumstances (we silently skirted on the edges of something more, but both knew it wouldn't be right). I listened to this album on the train home.
So basically, all of that was just an elaborate, and admittedly somewhat pretentious way of saying the album had a profound effect on me, seemingly resonating with things that were happening to me at the time. This is the main reason why this album has managed to stay with me.
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