Black Mountain refuse to define their Future

Thursday, 27 March 2008

Vancouver-based rockers Black Mountain put forward an absorbing, hypnotic sound that can be very broadly described as classic rock with a modern hipster twist. It’s quite a balancing act, but they manage to resurrect an intriguing progressive rock sound without sounding overly nostalgic or dated.

Veteran rocker Stephen McBean shares singing duties with Amber Webber, providing a nice rotation between McBean’s laconic vocal style and Webber’s summoning of the spirit of a wailing Grace Slick. But when it comes to nailing down their music, keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt is hesitant to slap on a label.

“We don’t really endeavour to describe our music; we let other people do that,” he explains. “I guess we fit into the classic progressive rock idiom to a certain degree, but we don’t feel particularly compelled to describe it beyond that.”

According to Schmidt, the band has many influences, encompassing “everything from old country rock to new wave,” though he personally cites “German progressive rock and Krautrock” as particularly heavy influences.

Giving their new album, In The Future, a quick spin offers a few suggestions for labelling the band. Opening with “Stormy High,” a heavy stoner-jam, the album includes a Neil Young-esque sound in “Stay Free” before peaking with a sprawling, 17-minute prog rock trip in “Bright Lights.” It would be nearly impossible to come up with an all-encompassing general description of the material presented, but it’s certainly managed to establish pockets of fans all across the country.

Although they’ve been busily touring across North America as of late, they remain strongly attached to the Vancouver community, where several members of Black Mountain work at Insite, the city’s controversial safe injection site. Regarding the effect that these experiences have on themselves and their music, Schmidt thinks of it as subconscious at best.

“We don’t address it in any direct way. What you do in your everyday life, regardless of how banal it might be or how extraordinary it might be, finds itself into what you do creatively. It affects your worldview, and that sort of dictates where you are coming from when you are approaching any kind of creative endeavour.”

It’s hard to say whether they’re rockers with a social conscience or social workers with a rock band, but in addition to the pair of job descriptions the band already carries—musicians and safe-injection supervisors—Schmidt can add artist to his own resumé. He personally designed the psychedelic cover art for their new album, the ironically titled In the Future. He credits Storm Thorgerson, known best for his work with Pink Floyd, for making the covers that enthralled him as a child.

“[It’s] the type of sleeve art that you kind of get lost in. I think all of us had that experience growing up—listening to albums and sitting there, investigating the gatefold, and staring at the cover. It’s like this slightly lurid, magical world that these covers allude to. It’s something I’ve always been enamoured with, and I set out to create something a bit like that.”

Whatever Black Mountain has created with In The Future, it’s raised the band’s popularity to newfound peaks. But fresh from a recent appearance on Conan O’Brian, and with a new album debuting on the UK Top 100, Schmidt remains modest about his band’s successes.

“I wouldn’t really say that [we’re going to be the next big thing]. I feel like we may have broadened the listening base with this new album and reached a few more people. We had an unprecedented success on the first one, and that set the template for the second one, with more people who are interested in our next move. I don’t think that any of that is indicative of some meteoric rise or anything. It doesn’t really affect our outlook in any way.”

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