There’s a thing about prolificness (prolificity?); it usually sucks. Think about someone like Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. He’s a guy who has written literally in excess of 500 songs but aside from his first two albums, he can’t muster up a collection of decent ones to save his life. Or the dudes from the Mars Volta. They’ve put out a half dozen solo albums each or so since At The Drive-In broke up, and it’s pretty difficult to listen to them at all, let alone tell the difference between a lot of the material.
But then there are folks like John Darnielle, the songwriter and performer that is the force behind the Mountain Goats, easily one of the most intriguing, challenging, and rewarding musical acts of the last ten years. And yes, he’s also one of the most prolific musicians of the modern age, boasting a catalogue of songs so voluminous that even Willie Nelson would be jealous.
His/their latest release is Heretic Pride, an LP that — like every Mountain Goats album — I can recommend without reservation. While the usually-sparse instrumentation isn’t knocking down doors or breaking new ground, it’s the lyrics, pained and poetic as ever, and the way they meld seamlessly with the music that really gets you. He’s weaving a tapestry, he’s piecing together a puzzle, he’s casting a spell. For example: the slight, subtle string section augmenting the dark and depressing “Marduk T-shirt Men’s Room Incident”, or the forceful palm-muting propelling the incredibly terrific metaphor of “Autoclave”, or the song-story from the perspective of an actor portraying a crazed, fictional serial killer (”Michael Myers Resplendent”) that closes out the record.
Darnielle is quoted in a Pitchfork interview as saying something like, “I don’t think people listen to Mountain Goats without some concern for the lyrics.” That remains especially true on this record, even though he’s moved away from the starkly honest confessionals of his last two records. Instead he returns to the task of crafting fictional characters (or real characters in imagined/hypothetical situations; ie. “Lovecraft In Brooklyn”) and their accompanying storylines. If songs were novels, Darnielle would be up there with Vonnegut (in my eyes, at least).
Anyhow, because I’m such a booster for Mountain Goats, I decided not to just cherry-pick a couple of songs from the latest record. Instead I’ve assembled a short mix tape of songs I feel represent everything I love about Darnielle’s music. From the exquisite metaphor of “Autoclave” to the pained attention to detail in “Your Belgian Things” to the intricate autobiography of “This Year” to the skewed observationality of “Love Love Love” and literally the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, “Source Decay,” it’s all here. Eight tracks culled from five releases, a pretty healthy smattering of the possibilities the entire discography presents. Procedural note: the first and last tracks posted below are actually two songs on one file. This was done out of necessity, as I couldn’t remember how to post more than six files at once. Also, due to file size restrictions on the part of our host, they are of a lesser bitrate than I usually like to operate in. Apologies to the sticklers on that.
Anyway, I hope if you don’t already have it in you this post inspires a similar kind of adoration as I have for these songs. I guess we’ll see.
Moutain Goats Mix - Woke Up New & Autoclave:
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Mountain Goats - This Year [3:53m]:
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Mountain Goats - Your Belgian Things [3:49m]:
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Mountain Goats - Linda Blair Was Born Innocent [2:46m]:
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Mountain Goats - Source Decay [3:49m]:
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Mountain Goats - Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident & Love Love Love [6:01m]:
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There are plenty of ways to enjoy the Goat:
iTunes: Buying Mountain Goats music is beyond easy. Twenty-two or -three releases alone on iTunes alone
4AD web store: Latter-day Goats releases sample the entire new album here
InSound: The band and myself recommend going to InSound for a more comprehensive selection, including CDs.
Pat entries
acoustic, indie rock, lyrics, mix tapes, Mountain Goats
