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A Silver Mt. Zion was formed by Efrim, Thierry and Sophie (all of GY!BE) at the beginning of 1999, and after a debut performance at Constellation’s Musique Fragile concert series, the trio recorded this sublime debut record on 8-track at the Hotel2Tango in November of that year. Starting with simple, stirring piano themes written by Efrim, the music swirls and sways with multiple violin tracks from Sophie and plucked contrebasse from Thierry (his first recording on upright acoustic bass). What initially began as a single long, sparse chamber piece evolved into more fully-orchestrated movements, interspersed with tapes, drones and loops, along with some vocals. Guest musicians include Aidan (GY!BE, Exhaust, 1-Speed Bike) beating skins on “Sit In The Middle Of Three Galloping Dogs”, and Gordon Krieger (Exhaust) and Sam Shalabi (The Shalabli Effect, solo) improvising on clarinet and electric guitar respectively on “Blown-Out Joy From Heaven’s Mercied Hole”. Additional taped fragments are from Efrim’s archives, with contributions from Aidan. The resulting series of plaintive ensemble pieces shivers with intimate sadness. He Has Left Us Alone… is by far our most requested record for student film projects. Dedicated to Efrim’s dog Wanda. Read more on Last.fm.
This second Silver Mt. Zion album features an expanded band, with a similarly expanded band name. The addition of cello, second violin and second guitar has allowed SMZ to develop richer, denser arrangements while preserving live ensemble playing. The opening instrumental pieces pick up where the debut left off, with found-sound loops and treatments introducing repeated melodic themes that move slowly through various counter-melodies — the greater breadth of instrumentation brings extra subtlety, complexity and harmonic range to bear on these neo-classical dirges. Guitars and vocals move to the fore on the album’s centerpiece tracks. “Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River” is an astounding juxtaposition of rhythmic thrust and ricocheting vocals, driven by a battered lyrical paranoia that conjures equal parts fear and rage. The calm after this storming piece comes by way of another vocal tune, this time fragile and near-whispered, with dual lines that alternately mask and reinforce each other. A piano and cello interlude prefaces the last side of the record, which features two guitar-driven songs, the first a blazing rock piece that builds to an exuberant distorted climax, the second as close to a pop masterpiece as this band is likely to craft, highlighted by a lovely arpeggio guitar riff and the defiant refrain “musicians are cowards”. While remaining anchored in an underlying sadness and mourning over this failed world, this album reveals an angrier, more urgent face as this unique ensemble charts ever-widening sonic and emotional terrain. Read more on Last.fm.
“We recorded some of it next to a campfire by the river, and the sleepy birds even chirped a little there beneath the moonlit trees; “yes we are oh yes we are thee silver mt. zion memorial orchestra and tra-la-la band”… troubled fingers strive to knit upward ladders, joyously; THESE SONGS ARE STICKY, WORRIED KNOTS – everyone sang and handclapped too – (we learned to play these songs on the road mostly…) “THIS IS OUR TORCHED ESTATES” = 6 busted “waltzes” for world wars 4 thru 6, or the sound of our nervous unit collapsing across sing-song eruptions of anxious light and clumsy heat, “mysteryandwonder, messy hearts made of thunder,” tape recordered at thee mighty hotel2tango for all the GENTLE dreamers to cradle or discard… the politics of it is just love thy neighbour mostly, or heartbroken temper tantrums for grumpy refusers, or saucy anthems for all the stubborn dumbass resistance cadres maybe…(first song’s about war and drug addiction, fourth song’s about kanada, and the rest of it is all love songs trulytrulytruly…) the indignant critics amongst us should note that as usual there’s more questions than answers here, more complaints than solutions, and at times the group singing is a little out of tune; the name of the record is “horses in the sky”, and we thank you all for still listening" Read more on Last.fm.
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band have been making a big raw angry tender racket since the 2005 release of their last album, Horses In The Sky. With a focus on live performance and special projects over the past three years, the group proper has logged well over 100 shows in Europe and North America, in between sessions that yielded Thee Silver Mountain Reveries EP and Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio tour (featuring four members of Mt. Zion and both members of labelmates Hangedup), as well as collaborations with Carla Bozulich, Vic Chesnutt and Patti Smith in the studio and in concert. The music of the full band (two guitars, two violins, cello, contrebasse and drums) has grown louder, looser, full of spittle and tears. On 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons, riffs are the backbone more than ever. Anchored by new drummer Eric Craven (ex-Hangedup), the band works its slow build and burn with newfound patience, sinuousness and ferocity. Whether methodically framing walls of sound over the four-on-the-floor punk dirge of “1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound” or exploding in sheets of free noise and melody on “Black Waters Blowed”, the band has never rocked harder and has never sounded more determined, desperate and driven. A stuttered blues riff is the foundation for the album’s title track, making its appearance after a blisteringly minimalist intro. “Engine Broke Blues” features a gorgeous set of chords that build inexorably from multiple guitar, string and organ lines. Fans of the group will be familiar with much of this material from the band’s live shows over the past couple of years. The recording, undertaken at the newly renovated Hotel2Tango facility in Montreal and co-engineered by Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh (who is also the band’s live sound person), ups the ante considerably, with crackling guitar crescendos setting the pace for dive-bombing swirls of strings, while Efrim’s voice rasps and wails words of worry, hope and fury throughout. The band’s hallmark group vocal passages are positively spine-tingling. Read more on Last.fm.