ep // Red Thong / Mountaineers
When I started this website a good few years back
I had two goals: to expand my collection of Mute releases
to the point where I owned every release, and to explore the pre-
or post-Mute careers of its artists in order to provide the completest
possible overview of its roster. To satisfy the former I resumed
the all-formats purchasing of every new release plus intense eBay
searches to fill in the gaps in my collection. To satisfy the latter
I'd buy rare releases like this EP by Mountaineers, who at
the time were being lauded as Mute's next big thing. So, having
shelled out a not insignificant sum of PayPal cash on this CD, I
was a little pissed off when they got dropped shortly after the
release of Messy Century. And that was the death of the second
personal goal for this website.
The 'Red Thong' EP (also known as 'Mountaineers'
EP) was released on Deltasonic, the Liverpool indie that brought
the world The Coral and The Zutons (accordingly, Deltasonic should
be tried for crimes against music given how annoying the song 'Valerie'
is). My cardboard sleeve (adorned with pixelated images aping the
Mini-Pops style) bears a sticker from a promoter which lists Mountaineers'
influences as being John Cage, Studio One and early hip-hop and
proclaims the three piece band to 'make music that has 2001 stamped
all over it'. I'm not convinced by the imparted influences but I'll
let them off. As for being the sound of 2001, that year would ultimately
come to be characterised by altogether more unexpected and entirely
tragic sounds, not the output of a three-piece band from Wales.
This, for me is a lot more palatable than the Messy
Century album, which I now find somewhat patchy and sprawling. At
just six tracks, this is slightly over-long for an EP, but in many
ways the format provides less opportunity for excess.
That's not to say that the EP doesn't include many
of the same basic components - opener 'Red Thong' kicks off with
a spray of electronics before strummed vocals, processed beats and
distorted vocals carry this meditative track toward an electronic
collapse. 'Rack' is my personal favourite, possessing as it does
a simplicity and mutated slow soul groove. 'Cluster Of You' is built
on layers of electronic sounds, gently shimmering and noodling along,
blending dub-like depth with a warped lullaby ethereality.
'Figurine', the shortest track, runs at a minute
and a half, and is essentially a distorted strummed guitar and vocal
piece, curiously deploying the words 'red thong', making me wonder
if the song names aren't round the wrong way; anyway, it sounds
like a demo. 'Trainman' is another bass-heavy highlight, and indicates
that if Mountaineers dropped some of their more wayward preferences,
they'd write a mean anthem. The stop-start pace and prog-rock keyboards
stop 'Trainman' from reaching those possible heights. By 'Slender
Hat', the final track, I was feeling a little bored of the overall
Mountaineers style, but it does have a pleasantly dramatic quality
to the chorus, and some of the experimental elements are thoughtfully
pushed into the background. And just as you think it's all finished,
some squalling synths and randomly clanking beats provide the EP's
true close.
CD:
1. Red Thong
2. Rack
3. Cluster Of You
4. Figurine
5. Trainman
6. Slender Hat
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