Deviating from my current series of posts on ScholComms, I wanted to interject to recommend a new, independent music project from two of the original members of the Alabama 3. The project is entitled Mountain of Love (the founder, Piers Marsh's, pseudonym) and the genre is "dubtronica", a fusion of dub and electronica, as the name suggests.
The album is intensely funky and kicks off with the title track, "Mountain of Love", which, much like the closing track, brings in a kind of gospel feel to imbue the album with the tongue-in-cheek reverential feel. This gospel theme is continued with the second track, "Another Man Done Gone". One of the interesting things about this project is that I've seen it in various stages over the past few years. I think it was in 2009 or 2010 that I first encountered the spin-off project, at an Alabama 3 gig. Piers, who usually lurks at the side of the A3 performances, quietly (!) masterminding the exercise from his tech. gear, took centre stage to play a collection of extremely deep dub music that sounded like a cross between Moby's Play, with its gospel sampling, and the early Alabama 3 stuff that I love. I was instantly struck. Over the years, the album has gone from being an electronic laptop-only project to a full-band effort. Hence, "Another Man Done Gone" is now replete with live vocals, drums and so forth.
Amid a raft of great tracks, the stand-outs are "Mountain of Love", "Things and Thoughts", "Push Out the Boat" (which is fantastic!), "Talking Your Language" and "Set You Free". You can listen to a sample of all the tracks on the Mountain of Love official website. In any case, this is a solid buy for a measly £10 and you should do yourselves a favour and get on it right now! The album is available for pre-purchase, but you get a direct download link to get listening straight away.
Mountain of Love live at the Windmill, Brixton in 2013.