Unexpected Discovery: Mountaineer!
The coolest moments for me, when it comes to music, is when I discover something really cool COMPLETELY on accident. Tumblr’s a really good place for that to happen and in my Tumblr perusing on Saturday, I had one of those totally awesome “Oh my god what is this beautiful piece of music I have found” moments when I happened to see this post on my dashboard. As someone who is very much attracted to the male gender, seeing an attractive man in a gif does spark my interest, to be frank (I am human, don’t judge me). As fate would have it, my passing interest brought me to college gif man’s Tumblr only to find out that this UC Irvine grad, Danny Poissant, had released an amateur recorded album titled Family Trees under the pseudonym Mountaineer!.
I’m surprisingly picky about the quality of recordings I listen to for someone knows very little about sound engineering so I was a bit hesitant in clicking play, but I did it anyway. Great decision on my part because Family Trees is an exceptionally good indie record. Conceptually, it’s on par with artists like Local Natives, Fleet Foxes, and Freelance Whales. Is it a little rough around the edges? Of course, Poissant admits to that on his Tumblr, but it shows an incredible amount of promise in my mind. He shows a great understanding of the structure of the indie folk genre and, just in general, the songs are good! The first track I think really symbolizes what Poissant is doing through creating the album. It begins with a hint of hesitation, starting out with a simple guitar riff. From there, he begins adding in other sounds and instruments – drums, tambourine, harmonies. The song ends up sounding fairly experimental and in a good way. It sounds like the result of a weekend jam session with some good friends and I like that. That spirit of experimentation is very present in each song on the album but with each subsequent song, Poissant seems to get more and more sure of himself. More sounds, more vocals, more structure. He finds a stride and runs with it. His sound is atmospheric and grounded and the more I listen to the record, the more I feel like the raw and amateur recording almost suits the songs’ overall vibe. You will probably never hear me say that about any other artist, but I must admit Poissant made it all work brilliantly.
To make the album even better, it is available on bandcamp and you can buy it for any price your wallet desires which is good news if you’re a broke college student like me. So, Here’s to you, Danny Poissant! My reason for going to your blog was completely trivial, but my reason for following you is not. Oh how I just love an unintended discovery…