Centralia

about this album

The Brooklyn electro-acoustic duo Mountains have finally landed in a place as vast and awe-inspiring as the landforms they're named after. This is an album that causes you to view everything the band did before a little differently, turning 2011's Air Museum into a transitional piece, a necessary step in the build toward Centralia. Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg seem to alter their working methods with each passing release, choosing here to separately layer acoustic and electronic instruments, not manipulating the former with the latter. The technical details aren't too important; to pick apart who did what and where would cause Centralia to lose some of its magic. Instead, it's better to just fall into it, letting it wash over you again and again. The actual Centralia is a ghost town in Pennsylvania, a place with a population barely in double figures, condemned by a 1962 mine fire that made it largely uninhabitable. It couldn't be less appropriate as a title-- this Centralia is rich with connection, bustling with possibility. It's got life pulsing through it. This is an album that finds Mountains expanding outward, replacing bungalows with steeples. Brian Howe noted that the duo "like a big canvas" in his review of Air Museum, but nothing from that album feels as all-encompassing as their work here. They've added a touch more movement to their music, with the perma-halt they get locked into mostly intact. But those changes in tone are often startling and moving when they

tracks

more from Mountains

Choral

Air Museum

Sewn

Mountains

Mountains Mountains Mountains

Midnight (Remastered)