Bon Iver

Jagjaguwar

Indie-crooner Justin Vernon, better known to the masses as Bon Iver, is back after a four year absence. His latest self-titled album picks up where For Emma, Forever Ago left off. Though he’s gone a long way from being the self-wallowing troubadour he once was, Vernon’s songs still sound similar to the earlier albums, and that isn’t a bad thing. This record is more electrified and complexly arranged than For Emma, but yet it retains the same hazy vibe: it shows the same Vernon, albeit not in a cabin. Bon Iver isn’t indie rock that scans as folk. The music here is more like a dark/bright pop with an experimental edge that carefully combines arrangement and dynamics, and takes you to a place that feels so real, yet is imaginary at the same time. That’s probably why song titles such as the real “Calgary,” and mythical “Hinnom, TX” and “Michicant” are good examples of Bon Iver. These tunes are more about taking the listener to a feeling or a state of mind that takes them outside of themselves. Acclaimed musicians such as bass saxophonist Colin Stetson and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz fill out the album and complement Vernon’s brooding vocals, giving this record a more mature, natural vibe—the incredible grassroots success of For Emma has allowed for the singer to go places far removed from his barebones first record. Vernon’s growing confidence in his songwriting, composition and creativity help make this record a pleasure to listen to. It’s hands-down one of the highlights of 2011.

-Daniel Kohn

(from Outside Love out now on Jagjaguwar)

Pink Mountaintops is about pinkness the way Black Mountain is about mountainness and songwriter-mastermind Stephen McBean’s newest album Outside Love is the sort of release you might want to eat to gain its heart and courage. He speaks now about food that makes him horny and coffee tables that make him cry. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

When was the last time an inanimate object brought you to tears?
Stephen McBean (vocals/guitar): Inanimate? Oh, that’s like all the time. Like a coffee table. Like one that’s really good at what it does.
It moved you to tears because it was so perfect?
Stephen McBean: Put your feet up on it and life’s beautiful.
Which photo shoot for this album was more fun? The one where you were like, ‘Oh, hello—I was just reading my book and I didn’t see you come in…’ or the one where you were in a bathrobe with a cocktail on the easy chair?
Stephen McBean: I think the bathrobe one on the chair was pretty unique. They were both pretty fine, though. It’s my Joe Boxer bathrobe that my mom got me 10 years ago for Christmas.
What’s the most you’ve ever endangered your bathrobe?
Stephen McBean: It’s easy when I go outside in it. I think it’s mostly during crow season, when the crows are nesting and stuff. Especially around my house there’s a lot of them and they tend to get pretty vicious and crazy. They dive bomb. I figured that if I were a crow, you’re picking people to intimidate and what not, and I definitely look like some idiot out in his Joe Boxer bathrobe so I’d be a target.
Are you baiting the crows when you go out like that?
Stephen McBean: A little bit. I’m kind of scared of crows.
What’s the most heartfelt conversation you ever had with an animal?
Stephen McBean: I actually had this one where a crow was hanging out next to me and he had the hiccups. I was just sitting on a park bench or maybe a stump and it just stared at me—it kinda had this look of embarrassment and it was just hiccupping. It was weird. It sounded so human.
Isn’t there some kind of belief that the crows are messengers from the other world?
Stephen McBean: I think there is some tales and probably truth to that.
What do you think gave him the hiccups?
Stephen McBean: I don’t know. They’re strange because they’re not very nice creatures. They’re pretty abrasive.
If you could have been raised by any type of animal, which animal would you prefer to have been raised by?
Stephen McBean: Probably some wolves—depends what part of the world. Maybe bears or wolves out in the woods.
So you’re into caves and fur?
Stephen McBean: Yeah—with the wolves it’s like, they’re tight with each other. Because being the loner would get to be a drag so it’s like a gang—they’ve got their hood.
What’s the biggest feast you’ve ever eaten in a moving vehicle?
Stephen McBean: I don’t know where we were—I think we were in Canada because I’m pretty sure it was a Tim Horton place and we went in there and we were all starving and it was probably really cold but we were late for the show. And they have really good soup and chili. I remember getting a big chili to go and then we had to drive and it was spilling all over me and half of me was in tears of sadness and half on the verge of a crazy rage of like ‘Fuck this! I just want to eat my thing!’ And it was really hot so a bunch of it splashed me and it would scald my skin. It wasn’t worth it—putting my skin safety at risk.
Did you just throw it on the ground?
Stephen McBean: I was like, ‘Can we just fucking pull over for a minute?’ It worked out okay.
How many conflicting emotions have you experienced simultaneously?
Stephen McBean: I don’t know—there’s a bunch. I get super horny when I eat food sometimes. Like really good food. Just anything really good. Really good Mexican food—generally anything really hearty. Sometimes it’s like overbearing.
How do you deal with that?
Stephen McBean: I rub my legs and shit. I move around like a cricket.
Do you think that’s why crickets do that, too? They’re feeling the exact same thing?
Stephen McBean: I think so.
What is the least sexually exciting food to you?
Stephen McBean: Something like Raisin Bran. Though I do like Raisin Bran.
But not in that way.
Stephen McBean: No.
I was reading that not wanting to get out of bed in the morning is a sign of psychosis—do you agree or disagree?
Stephen McBean: Maybe a bit. When I was a teenager I would sleep a lot—until 5 every day. I would stay up until like 7 AM and stuff. It’s the same kind of thing when its hard to leave the house because your shoes or your jeans are bugging you.
How does that bug you?
Stephen McBean: If it’s a laundry day, you know how you have one or two favorite pair of jeans? They’re like comfort blankets and you do laundry and then you have to wear this pair of jeans that your mom got you three years ago for your birthday, you know?
Your mom gets you a lot of clothes.
Stephen McBean: She does—it’s good.
Boxers with hearts on them?
Stephen McBean: No, but maybe like musical notes.
What do you think when it comes time to make another record, what do you think it will have more songs about—birth, space, or the highway?
Stephen McBean: Birth sounds good. Yeah. Maybe space.
When was the last time you saw something being born?
Stephen McBean: Oh jeez. I don’t know.
What would you like to see born?
Stephen McBean: A butterfly.
I thought you were going to say a wolf.
Stephen McBean: No, just a butterfly.
Which do you think is better for a band to have—no keyboards or no haircuts?
Stephen McBean: I’d say no haircuts. Well, just not matching haircuts. It could be short or long but not a rock-dude haircut.
What is your own worst hair-related mishap?
Stephen McBean: I remember in grade 6 or 7 I got bullied in the bathroom and these dudes duct-taped up my head. And they had to cut a bunch of chunks out so my hair looked pretty fucked up.
That’s like a CIA interrogation technique. I need to ask you something more cheerful now.
Stephen McBean: No, that’s cool. It’s like, ‘Where are they now?’
The CIA?
Stephen McBean: Probably.
When was the last time you were the best-dressed guy in the room?
Stephen McBean: Last night.
Were you having an Emmys party?
Stephen McBean: No—me and my friend Amber were hanging out and as far as like all the dudes there, I looked the best. Well, I was the only one there. But I kept catching my eye in the mirror.
When was the last time you kissed your own reflection?
Stephen McBean: I don’t know. Maybe the last time I was stoned.
Were you a little coy, or did you dive right in?
Stephen McBean: Nah, I was just having a good laugh—entertaining myself.
You have that novel on the cover of your record—if that novel actually existed what would be the first line on the first page of Outside Love?
Stephen McBean: The first line is—I can tell you because it’s sitting right here. Here it is: ‘It was 10 o’clock in the morning when the captain noticed the wind had begun to die.’

PINK MOUNTAINTOPS WITH XU XU FANG AND THE PACK A.D. ON TUE., SEPT. 22, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12 / 18+. ATTHECHO.COM. PINK MOUNTAINTOP’S OUTSIDE LOVE IS OUT NOW ON JAGJAGUWAR. VISIT PINK MOUNTAINTOPS AT PINKMOUNTAINTOPS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/PINKMOUNTAINTOPS.

Download: Sunset Rubdown “Idiot Heart”

(from Dragonslayer out Tue., June 23, on Jagjaguwar)

Sunset Rubdown began as a solo project for Wolf Parade‘s Spencer Krug but quickly evolved into a full band . The music veers from carnival-esque grandeur to pin-drop-quiet beauty, centered around Krug’s recurring lyrical themes of myth, legend and fantasy. They are currently touring in support of their newest album, Dragonslayer. Tom Child interviews multi-instrumentalist Michael Doerksen.

When you go into the studio to record with Spencer, are the songs pretty fully worked out at that point? Do you all have a pretty good idea of how it’s going to sound or do you improvise in the studio at all?
Michael Doerksen (guitar/drums): Well, with Dragonslayer, we knew most of the songs. We were playing them live. That was the idea for this record. We’ve worked other ways before and on Dragonslayer there are a few songs that were put together in the studio. The ones we were playing live, they weren’t working without us toying with them a little bit. So it really depends on what we plan to do. We’ve done a little bit of everything. I don’t think we cut anything. There are certain songs we do live that are different from the recording, like “For the Pier” or “Three Colours.” But no, we didn’t cut anything from this. We basically went in with what we had.
How much of a collaboration is it when you all work together? Does Spencer provide a basic framework and you all bring in your own ideas to structure around that?
Yeah, he has the basic framework in mind and we throw ideas on top of that and explore different avenues of where we can take the song. Everyone is working at their limits, musically. Everyone’s really challenged in this band to work and push themselves to grow and to have it be collaborative. I mean, Spencer has a few things in mind like a key melody or a hook, but the rest of it is kind of filled up by the rest of us, and I think what makes it fun for the band is that it’s sometimes hard for the listener to discern how it’s been made. We all switch instruments sometimes so you’re not sure who’s playing what on each song.
How do you view the progression of Sunset Rubdown from album to album? Is Dragonslayer a completely new direction or are you basically building on what has come before?
It’s a little bit of both, in a way. Sometimes I feel like it’s our first record as a band. There was always sort of a discontinuity between how our records sounded and how we sounded as a band, live. We started doing both of those things at the same time. We made a record very early into our playing together. So people come to see us play live and find that it sounds a little bit different from the record because it’s a live band. I think that’s how we all envisioned this project. That’s how bands should work. We’ve gotten closer on this record to presenting what we’re really like as something to come and watch, as a band. Most of the songs are live off the floor, cut a few days after our last show in Chicago. So they’re really fresh and honest and we didn’t really have time to think about the logistics of adding other things. Like on Random Spirit Lover, there are certain songs that we find difficult to play live because we maybe put a little too much into it and we can’t pull it off live. We just can’t get into it because it was cut in the studio. We’re open to all kinds of different ways of working, but this one definitely feels like a more honest representation of how we sound live.
Everyone always talks about how abstract the lyrics are and how hard it is to grasp onto a literal meaning, which is part of what makes the band so fascinating to listen to. But as someone who knows Spencer personally, do you feel like you know what kinds of real-life circumstances his lyrics actually reference, or is it as much a mystery to you as it is for the average listener?
There are certain things in songs where I might know what he’s talking about, or it might reference something that I know, but other times, like you say, he does use a lot of props, with mythology or… That’s one reason why I was really keen to work with him, because his lyrics are so interesting and strong. That’s kind of the best kind of poetry; that kind of work that puts more in your hands to struggle with and wrestle with the meaning, as opposed to it being flat out. But his lyrics are changing too. The lyrics… that’s his domain, for sure.
Spencer has talked about how, despite the fantastic sweep of the lyrics, the band doesn’t care to employ a lot of theatricality onstage. He likes that you all kind of come onstage wearing whatever you’d wear in your daily lives and just play the music. Is that something you enjoy too or is there a part of you that would like to give in to the excesses of bombastic stagecraft?
That’s an interesting question. We had a discussion when we first started the band about that kind of thing. We’d see other bands out there doing very elaborate, uniform kinds of performances, which were cool and some of it has been really interesting, even if it’s just a prop like Deerhoof using that spinning light wheel… the magic rainbow wheel or whatever it is. So there are certain things that are cool about that. We like to put lamps onstage. But as far as dressing up… maybe we’re old fashioned, but that’s not a big concern. The surface level appearance of the band doesn’t really enter into our equation. But there are certain things… like I’ve worn a cape during a show once… for fun. We were in Sweden or something and I just wore a cape onstage. We’re not really strict about it. It could be interesting to wear a certain t-shirt or put a sign up. We’ve toyed with these kinds of ideas, but when it comes down to it, when you’re on the road, you don’t really want to think about that stuff. Just getting through a song is complicated enough and is a challenge, so to think about how you’re coming across on another level visually is a whole other thing. Like Bowie pulled it off brilliantly and he had one of the best guitar players in the world who could don a crazy costume and play to that theatrical model, but we’re not really like that.
What’s it like touring with Sunset Rubdown? 24-hour party or do you keep it pretty serious?
Serious. No, we don’t really fancy ourselves partiers or anything like that. We’re pretty mellow—we like to get a good night’s sleep usually. We have the usual entertainment in the van or we like to sleep during the day. Pretty humdrum, when it comes down to it. Read a book or listen to music or talk. Play a game. No video games though. Actually, we did have a video game in Europe. We had a machine in the van that they rented for us. It was like you were Hercules or someone, fighting Zeus? It was pretty epic.
That seems pretty appropriate.
Actually—you’re right.
If you can think of your favorite Sunset Rubdown show that you’ve played—where was the show and what made it so great for you?
We’ve had some pretty good times in a lot of places, but one time in particular…I think it was our first tour out by ourselves…we had gone out with Frog Eyes and then we were out again just by ourselves which was new to us. It was a memorable tour in that way. But we played in Atlanta at a place called Lenny’s, and the crowd was so incredible. It was a small kind of old man’s bar. They had just got a brand new PA and it sounded amazing and the crowd was incredible. It was the kind of crowd where they’re right in your face and you’re clinking your beers together with them. There’s no stage. It was incredible and we played an incredible show. It was one of our tightest sets. Just because of the energy in that room, I couldn’t forget it.
As a guitar player, who has most influenced your style?
There are a number of players that I’ve been listening to. Neil Young, even John Fahey. Thurston Moore—as a younger guitar player growing up—was a big influence on me. That kind of dirty playing. But I also really like Queen. Brian May’s playing was incredible. Jimmy Page, for how many styles he touched and for how risky his playing was. I think between Jordan and I, we can get a little flashy sometimes. It’s fun. You don’t get a chance to write that kind of solo everyday. And Spencer’s music can really lend itself to complicated playing and really complicated musicianship. It’s a challenge. That’s precisely what I liked about his songwriting. When I saw him play with Wolf Parade when they first started, I thought, ‘I’d really like to play with this guy.’ It’s certainly a challenge. I’d been playing with other bands where the themes were good, the lyrics were strong and the music had a lot of emotion to it, but the music was kind of a Nick Cave orchestra kind of thing. Or I’ve played in completely improvised noise bands. But I came from a blues background—kind of a classic rock background in terms of my guitar playing. So finding someone to write these great pop tunes—it’s definitely fun.
How did you and Spencer meet each other?
Through a friend of a friend; that friend being Arlen from Wolf Parade. I’d been playing in bands with him since I was about 18 in Victoria. We came out here together the same year. We were playing in bands before Wolf Parade formed. I was in a rock band where he was the drummer and Dan and Spencer came to town and formed a band and wanted Arlen. Arlen was quite a sought-after drummer in Victoria. He played in many, many bands, so I didn’t hold it against him. It was a great opportunity. The band I was in folded, but before that we shared the same jam space—this rock band and the newly formed Wolf Parade—and at one point we were switching up and this kind of a jam session—which might arise when musicians get together in the same room and the instruments are on—happened between Spencer and I. We started jamming out on something and he always remembered that. We saw each other around and eventually, when Sunset Rubdown’s first record got some attention and he planned on touring with it, he asked me since we were familiar with each other and he liked my playing. It was kind of a perfect match.
If you had to pick a favorite Sunset Rubdown song, what would it be?
Woah. Um… geez, it’s such a hard question. I’ve never been asked that before. Haven’t even thought about it because they’re all like children. They’ve all got certain characteristics that you enjoy while you’re playing it. And I’ve never gone through a set feeling bored. Some things get me more excited on certain nights, like “The Taming of the Hands.” That’s a really fun one to play. Ferocious. But I like getting on the drum kit and playing “Stadiums and Shrines.” The drums on “The Men Are Called Horsemen…” We haven’t played that in a while. We’ve talked about really redoing it. But yeah, I can’t really… What’s your favorite?
“The Men Are Called Horsemen…” Where do you think you’ll be headed after this, creatively?
Well, I suppose we will put out another record. I don’t know, I can’t say. We definitely haven’t spoken about too much. Actually just today, Spencer told me he wanted to start putting out singles and EPs only strictly. No more records. It seems that putting together an album is quite a task and you can fail and people will still maybe see something that you didn’t see in how it works perfectly as this record in some way that you didn’t even intend or think about. But getting back to the idea of singles and just pumping out songs… it’s an interesting model. I don’t know.
What do you think has inspired him to think about doing that?
I think it’s kind of a practical thing. Like when the song’s finished, you can just get it out there right away instead of having to perform it and sit on it for two years and then put it on a record. Like “Idiot Heart,” for example—we’ve been playing that since we recorded Random Spirit Lover but we decided not to put it on that record. And it’s actually based on one of our very first songs which became “Q-Chord” on the first record. We stripped everything else that we had done on that song and just left Camilla’s playing on the QChord and we came back to it again a year and a half later. So it’s kind of like if a song is ready, you can just get it out. That’s why we recorded that for Daytrotter—just to get it out there so people know it and can enjoy it at the show when they come hear it. It’s nice to be familiar with it.
Wasn’t there a plan to put out a 7″ that had some kind of photography component?
That’s come out already. And I think it came out and sold out. It was a very small pressing…the “Moonface” thing.
So is that the direction you’re heading? That kind of limited-run thing?
I don’t know about limited-run. That was an opportunity that came to us to do that sort of thing. But we’d probably like to see a little more than… what did they print? Like 1500? 500? I forget the number. Or even digitally release things, just pump them out online. We’ve been talking about getting a little more active on the internet on our own terms. None of us are on Facebook or anything. We’re not really that savvy. We don’t have a MySpace for Sunset Rubdown. But we’ve talked about having a little more control over our website, which has been pretty dull. We just post things occasionally. But you know, like Bradford Cox from Deerhunter, he pumps singles out for his Atlas Sound project and that’s a really interesting model. I think it’s really effective and practical for your audience, that kind of interaction. And 7″s and vinyl especially are becoming more and more important, ironically or unexpectedly, and I think that’s going to become a real driving force in the economy of the music industry, as far as making some kind of return for your music. Vinyl is a really good way to go.

SUNSET RUBDOWN WITH ELFIN SADDLE AND WITCHIES ON TUES., JUNE 23, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8 PM / $13-$15 / ALL AGES. ATTHEECHO.COM. SUNSET RUBDOWN’S DRAGONSLAYER RELEASES TUES., JUNE 23, ON JAGJAGUWAR. VISIT SUNSET RUBDOWN AT SUNSETRUBDOWN.NET.

(off Outside Love out May 5th on Jajaguwar)

Download: Black Mountain “Tyrants”

(from In The Future on Jagjaguwar)

Black Mountain were the first band ever interviewed for L.A. RECORD. They since went on to release another excellent album and to share bills with Bob Dylan and Judas Priest. Keyboard player and designer Jeremy Schmidt speaks from somewhere that is not a motel room in Blythe, California. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

How does it feel to be just one producer away from Celine Dion?
Jeremy Schmidt (keys): John Congleton? I didn’t know that. But I’ve always certainly wanted to get close to Celine Dion, you know. I just want to see if she is actually a robot. Then maybe I could figure out how to switch her off or something.
Black Mountain has played with Dylan, Coldplay, Tom Petty, Neil Young and Judas Priest—which of those impressed your parents the most?
My parents? Definitely the Coldplay thing. They were just impressed by that because we actually went on tour with them—my mom specifically. Talking to her brothers and sisters who are from the U.K., she became quickly informed as to where their place in the world was. It is definitely currency that parents can understand a bit better than other barometers of success that you might actually consider important to yourself.
Is it true that you still work in a department store?
I work there a couple days a week. Well, these days there is a recession going on, so I only work one day a week. I still hang on to that job just to balance against my free time.
Were they impressed by the Coldplay thing?
My boss thought that was pretty cool.
So touring with Coldplay really positively affected your life.
It really translates well to the old straight world—that kind of thing. It didn’t feel like any kind of apex to our career, but its something that seemed to translate well to bosses and parents cause they’re like, ‘Ok, something like Coldplay—I can gauge that, I can understand that exists in the upper echelon of success.’ And if you can sort of relate yourself to that in some way then they’re like, ‘Ok—I see.’
SPIN described you as ‘stripper-pole music from Middle Earth’—have you ever weathered a more jarring comparison?
Maybe that’s not so jarring.
Are you then stripper pole music from somewhere else or are you a different kind of music from Middle Earth?
It’s like if the universe were spinning on an axis.
Are you saying the universe is itself spinning on a stripper pole?
You could stuff a dollar bill into the center of the universe.
There was a quote Stephen had in an interview about how when he was a kid he would get his Led Zeppelin record and lean back in his beanbag chair with headphones and just transport himself away. Is that something you ever did?
Oh yeah. Definitely like some Pink Floyd records. Or Jean Michel Jarre “Oxygen.” Talk Talk. Actually I just started listening again to the Talk Talk record—The Colour of Spring. That’s really like a great headphone—or ‘head’ album, I guess. There is so much sonic detail and so much attention to space and atmosphere on that record. Actually most of their records that they did after that— Spirit of Eden is another great one. King Crimson has some good ones like that—good headphone jams.
As Black Mountain’s cover designer, did you ever consider a Tarkus-like prog-monster for an image?
It’s never been discussed. But I know have a copy of the Tarkus kicking around here somewhere. That’s a crazy record because it sort of looks like children’s story art, but its so sinister looking at the same time. Rainbow kind of color schemes but then a lion with a scorpion tail or a mechanical pterodactyl or an armadillo tank—and you’re like, ‘Whoa.’
What is your favorite gatefold artwork from your own record collection?
Hawkwind had some pretty great foldouts, I don’t know if they are my favorite but they are the ones that really stand out. They have this one record that actually folds out into like, a shield. Warrior On The Edge of Time. I think they have that double live one where it has a huge foldout—like an eight-panel foldout. There is a Chilliwack album—I think its maybe their second—and the gatefold is just like a picture of an island in the sea. It’s this murky kind of photograph and no text or anything. It looks like the piece of the background of a Polaroid that’s been blown up into a giant gatefold. It’s quite minimal but its really nice looking. Shit, I could go on about record covers.
How about Rocket Robin Hood—was there ever a greater animated series?
Did somebody mention that in an interview or something—probably me? What was the context in which I mentioned Rocket Robin Hood?
An aside to somebody who I don’t think understood what you were talking about.
If I understood what I was talking about! I remember seeing it when I was a kid—I remember it had pretty cool sonic detail and weird Theremin sounds and sample-and-hold kinda stuff so that’s probably what I was talking about. That was a good one. I remember the intro pretty well—they kept just looping. They’d repeat scenes of the guy eating—the Friar Tuck guy with everybody banging into his stomach.
Did that ever affect the dreams you had as a kid?
I don’t remember any cell repeats in my dreams.
What other mind-warping things like Rocket Robin Hood were you exposed to as a kid?
All kinds of stuff—the early notions about futuristic sensibilities. V was a good one! That peril about the future and invasions and how they would equate that with certain sorts of technology—yet that sort of technology was the creative framework for a lot of things. I think people still have that idea of technology—everyone embraces it but they also see it as possibly the main factor in the dissolution of the human race or the soul. I suppose the effects could only be subliminal, really—I mean for me being a keyboard player and being really into synthesizers, I’ve picked up all the antiquated instruments that were responsible for making all these otherworldly sounds that fascinated me as a kid. And I didn’t know where they came from or what they were—it was uncanny in some way.
Does this explain your pet Mellotron?
For sure—the Mellotron is definitely the epitome of my fascination with all things archaic in that way.
You were the very first band we ever interviewed—how have you changed as a human being during the intervening years?
I’m sure there was something between then and now that I forgot to do. I’m sure I left a door unlocked sometime between 2005 and 2008. Or I forgot to make a mix tape for somebody somewhere.

BLACK MOUNTAIN WITH THE SADIES ON SAT., MAR. 21, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$14 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. BLACK MOUNTAIN’S IN THE FUTURE IS OUT NOW ON JAGJAGUWAR. VISIT BLACK MOUNTAIN AT BLACKMOUNTAINARMY.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/BLACKMOUNTAIN.