Midway through the year I wrote an article about Mountain Man for the Spit Press, Sydney based streetpress for the creative individual. I’ve given that time to cool, but it’s been long enough. Here’s a song from Mountain Man. If you want to read the original article I wrote then click here and turn to page 18. It’s pretty funny. Not laugh out loud funny, more like “this bitter twenty-something is attempting to convince me that he himself is outside of pop-culture” funny. You know, like a hipster calling a hipster a hipster even though they are both hipsters. We’re all hipsters, some of us just don’t know it yet.

Mountain Man – Animal Tracks

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Mountain Man – River

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There are four songs available as free downloads from their Daytrotter session. Just click here and they can be yours.

Mountain Man are playing the Famous Spiegeltent in Sydney on Monday the 14th of January. I won’t be there as I’m away on camp but you should be there. It’ll be all time. Imagine the dead silence with these harmonies hovering above it.

Here are three tracks that will:
● function as a sweet backingtrack to your kickflip compilation video
● make whoever’s sitting in your passenger seat say “whoa, this is so summer!”
● make a girl fall in love with you when you give her a mixtape for Christmas
● help you do a sick 360 invert on a gnarly barrel at Curl Curl

On top of those swell features, you can also create an intentionally nostalgic season. Just listen to one (or all) of these tracks about twice a day for the next three months and I guarantee that you’ll constantly associate it with the summer of ’10/11 for the rest of your life.

The Explorers Club – Last Kiss
http://sites.google.com/site/sounddoct/player.swf
The Explorer’s Club are kind of like the Beach Boys crossed with… I guess they’re just kind of like the Beach Boys. Which is to say that they’re exactly like the Beach Boys.

The Walkmen – In The New Year [FREE DOWNLOAD]
http://sites.google.com/site/sounddoct/player.swf
My pal Samuel played this song on a drive down Mona Vale Road one time recently and it was pretty sublime. Outrageously good, you should probably listen to this track as you hit 100km/h on a freeway in blazing Summer sun.

Yukon Blonde – Wind Blows [FREE DOWNLOAD]
http://sites.google.com/site/sounddoct/player.swf
Lyrically, it’s more Winter than anything else but the gradual build, the Fleet Foxesesque harmonies and the heavy reverb all smack of heatstroke or something.

Feel free to suggest any other tracks you think would go well with this trio. All the better if they have a free download available. Perhaps this three can become a four.

At 3:30 this morning Valar, with your best interests at heart, uploaded a new track to their bandcamp. It’s called Make No Sound, ironically named since the song itself is full of sound – probably a good thing since four minutes of silence would arguably be the most pretentious thing Valar have released so far. On top of this, John Cage would probably sue for copyright were he still alive. It is however, a step forward for Valar being unlike any other recording they’ve released so far. Enjoy.

Valar – Make No Sound [FREE DOWNLOAD]

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If you haven’t already then be sure to download a few more of Valar’s tracks [for free] here. They also have a blindingly good EP for sale too. Get behind it and spend a tiny bit of coin.

I could find next to no information about him, so without wasting time, here’s what I assume to be an accurate though unconfirmed backstory to Leon Sommer.

Leon Sommer was conceived in 1984 as, having won $20 on a $1 scratchcard, his parents celebrated with drunkenness and accidental impregnation. Fast forward 7 years. It’s 1991 (simple math). A seven year old Leon Sommer first picks up a guitar. Within 11 minutes he’d written his first song, a wonderful track titled ‘Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Salmon!’. Lyrically it was exactly what people needed to hear at that time but another fifteen minutes later he recorded the track using a MacBook, some straw and several paper cups, renaming it ‘Sun Looks’. Shortly afterwards Leon was signed to Sony BMG. After a falling out between label and artist a lengthy court case ensued which left Sun Looks bound up in legal proceedings until mid 2010. Finally, Sony traded the rights to Sun Looks for several magic beans and Leon was able to take control of his music once more. In the August this year Leon Sommer was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for his work in astrology, having found the 13th sign of the zodiac. Leon now resides in Geneva where he is simultaneously the assistant to the UN secretary general and world bantam-weight boxing champion.

Leon Sommer – Sun Looks

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If you want to hear more from the man, the myth, the legend, then visit his bandcamp. His most recent collection of tracks is available for download with the option of paying nothing or something. I recommend you at least give him something. Heads up courtesy of Holly at East to West.

Sarah Adamson once suggested that a she, I and a few of our friends all purchase banjos and start what she casually dubbed ‘a banjo band’. In spite of this being the single worst idea ever, my little mind was awash with thoughts. “Banjos have become the staple instrument of the inner city, flannelette wearing, beard adorned contemporary folk scene”- so ran my inner monologue. Some artists such the mountains’ Luke Webb or Sydney’s Sleepyhands seamlessly meld the banjo into their sound. Nonetheless, even the best of these artists are barely a candle to the banjo fueled bonfire that is Megafaun.

From Megafaun’s Gather, Form and Fly, this is The Process

Megafaun – The Process

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When DeYarmond Edison broke up in 2006 most of the members went on to form Megafaun. The one member that didn’t continue on into Megafaun was a man named Justin Vernon. He went on to start The Bon Overs or Bainivers, or something like that. Whatever it was called I’m sure he’s devastated to have missed out on Megafaun’s success.