Mount Alaska are delighted to announce details of their debut album, Wave Atlas: Season One, released through 251 Records on Friday, November 22nd, 2019.
Their two new singles Back to the Land, My Love, and The Last Time They Met / Lunar are 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.
Mount Alaska play The Fumbally Stables (Dublin), on Friday, November 29th and The Roundy (Cork) on Saturday, December 7th.
The album was written, recorded and produced by Stephen Shannon and Cillian Mc Donnell (the former members of Halfset), 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 the narrative 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.
“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 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 … ”
