Mt. Home Arts is a publisher/label which release really cool music and really, really cool handmade tapes and other things. I have been meaning to write something about several of their releases for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it. Well now I aim to put that right by featuring each of the releases they have put out this year in one big post.
Sarah Winchester – Northeast Kingdom
Sarah Winchester is a member of the really rather excellent Oregon-based band A Weather, If you are a fan of A Weather and bemoan the fact they only have two albums, Winchester also records solo under her own name, namely this excellent release entitled Northeast Kingdom. The EP (which was originally released way back in 2009 by Team Love Records) contains six songs and each is as beautiful as the next. J. Tillman-esque finger-picked acoustics support writing that is nothing short of poetry. The lyrics, along with Winchester’s distinctive delivery, capture hope and beauty amidst loneliness, a white-bright flicker in a twilit world of isolation and weariness and pain.
Get Northeast Kingdom on cassette, together with artwork by Winchester and artist Heather Swenson via Mt. Home Arts. If anything, the package is even prettier than the music.
Baby Mollusk – Baby Mollusk and the Big Babies
Baby Mollusk is Rachel Gordon. She plays guitar and sings spiky and sort-of-sad songs very sweetly. The Big Babies are Matt Van Asselt and Mike Ditrio. Those guys play bass and drums. Sometimes they all join in together and crash things around a bit in a wondrously joyous noise. Baby Mollusk and The Big Babies is a self-titled album and a really good one at that. You should all buy it on an incredibly good-looking cassette via Mt. Home Arts. You can also download it for however much you want via Bandcamp.
Whatever, Dad – 100% Take Home! Grade Pending
Whatever, Dad is the recording project of Elaiza Santos and sometimes some of her friends. She makes down-tempo rock music that sounds like an internal monologue of a young person written down and backed by a makeshift band. It is every bit as good as that sounds.
You can get the album via Bandcamp. Had you (or we) been more prompt, you could have gotten a cassette that came with buttons and butter (yep) and silkscreen napkins, a package that takes the tape game to a whole new level.
Real Life Buildings – It Snowed
Real Life Buildings is one of the songwriters from The Act of Estimating as Worthless (who also have releases on Mt. Home Arts), and the drummer too! Their names are Matthew Van Asselt and Mike Ditrio (remember them?). It Snowed is their debut album and is due for release on the 6th of November. It has quiet moments and loud moments, ramshackle lo-fi rock and intimate bedroom pop musings (often in the same song).
You can pre-order It Snowed on cassette right now via the Mt. Home Arts website.