Big Mountain County Klaus

Two years after the release of their last album Somewhere Else, BIG Mountain County releases a new EP. That's Klaus, the result of an evolution in sound and style that the band has carried out during the long months of forced absence from the scene. Unlike the past, the artistic production was in fact entirely in the hands of BIG Mountain County, which, never as this time, feel perfectly represented their soundscape in the tracks engraved on vinyl, available here from April 22. To open the dances there is (literally) What?, already released digitally last July. It is a song that, despite its attitude rooted in punk, is about artifice, about pushing the sounds to reach new landscapes. The super groovy bass lines, the crunchy drums, the connection between the synths and the vocals, raw, edgy but also refined and elaborate, push the band's style beyond the garage-psych overtones to which they have been associated. The lyrics are about a personal relationship, centered around someone very close who can turn into an unbearable person, leading us to a definitive reaction. But the song is also a vehicle for emotional release, so yell "What?" it becomes an indomitable will to move forward, to go through these absurd times that we are all living, a cry of anger against any kind of impediment. For What? was shot a video, released last July, signed by Paolo Sfirri. It follows the title-track THE Klaus Crossing, the unique track not yet unveiled. It is the track closest to the old production of BIG Mountain County, who speak of it as follows: “In such a "chaotic and fragile" period we need to dream even more strongly. On a heartbeat marked by the arpeggiator, a weave of guitars is being created to send the present to an other side, where we are stripped of material consistency and imagination takes the power. These days are too grey, some relationships are too worn out, there are no expectations, only the prospect of sinking. So we hurry: energies fade, time runs fast, but spring is just around the corner. And to be born it is necessary to die.” Side A is closed by Where ARE YOU?, released as a single in January. Here the contamination of psych sounds, exquisitely analog, with rhythmic and melodic lines with a more synthetic flavor is evident. Over a skeleton of a reiterated rhythm that is not afraid to refer explicitly to the krautrock of Can, we hear guitars and synthetic riffs that remain around Berlin, but look towards California, remembering The Brian Jonestown Massacre. In the middle of this combination, a synthetic arpeggio breaks in, to soon gets stuck in the pressing rhythm, and finally get confused in the closing explosion, BIG Mountain County's trademark. The band's "flirt" with Berlin and California doesn't end with the A-side. Side B, in fact, features the two remixes of Where ARE YOU?, both already released digitally last March. The first one is signed by AL Lover, , cult name of the international psych scene, known for his unique approach to psychedelic and experimental electronic music. Already author of remixes for bands such as Thee Oh Sees and Night Beats, he has collaborated with several labels (Stolen Body Records, The Reverberation Appreciation Society, Fuzz Club Records, Hoga Nord Rekords, Pnkslm Records and Crash Symbols) and artists such as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, White Fence, Goat and Cairo Liberation Front. He has also been the official DJ for festivals such as Levitation and Desert Daze. When Big Mountain County approached the California-based producer about remixing Where ARE YOU?, these were his words: "I really love this track! Been jamming it loud! I love the vibe of the original track and the production value. I tried to preserve some of those elements but with a different twist. I was able to sit down with this over the last few days. Really digging the results, I went with a mix of krautrock / shoegaze / chopped and screwed trip hop vibes." The result doesn't betray his words, but according to the band it goes even further: “The Californian producer Al Lover puts the music of Big Mountain County on film. He projects it on the big screen, cleverly uses photography and rewrites the plot with a very personal editing. Colors of the East, no longer intended as a lysergic space, but as a chaotic traffic of men, vehicles and animals on any given day in the Indian subcontinent (in Mumbai). In this marasmus the echo of what has been, or what could be, is there to re-propose the question that led to writing the screenplay: "Where are you?”. With the second remix, which closes out the EP, Big Mountain County are infected with a tropical disease in this remix masterfully produced by Tropicantesimo, aka UGO Sanchez, metropolitan prophet of slow rhythms and star of nights with no end, if not in hallucinated dawns front of the sea. Big Mountain County talks about it like this: “Here, more than hangover, that's "saudade" . So, the sense of lack becomes a curse - How does it feel to live so far away for me? - to be shouted, shared and cried. But outside, in some crowded city in the South of the world, it's Carnival and Summer is still there to be lived and danced, perhaps at a slower and more rhythmic pace.” An experiment, that of the remix of their songs, long in the band's wish book, finally fulfilled by Hugo Sanchez, cult Rome-based DJ and producer, recently protagonist of the recording declination of Tropicantesimo, a musical ritual dilated in time, through the celebration of sound and dance. This is a party, which over the years has become a real experience of listening, sharing and discovery out of time and space, finding home among the records and recordings of Pescheria, space-studio, but also record project, which sees Hugo Sanchez at the center of a collective of artists of various forms, musical, visual and sound installation. After having premiered two tracks by Klaus at the last Esns in Groningen (nl), Big Mountain County will return to play from April 23rd, in a tour with more than twenty gigs in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and UK. In July they will be back in Berlin for the Fusion Festival 2022.