Thursday, March 13   1:00 a.m.
Mohawk Patio   (912 Red River St)

  Black Mountain - Druganaut
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There is no simple life, and these are not simple times. The mythical days of clearer heads, of moral certainty, and of men and women acting with resolute spirit are behind us (if those times ever existed). Black Mountain, from Vancouver, British Columbia, write, perform and record music that speaks (and sings) to this realization: that solutions are rarely simple, that the world is as complex as it is ambiguous, and that music sprinkled with an inoculating dose of madness may well be the Pied Piper that takes us all back into the primordial mountain, where our hearts can be made steady and our minds can be set free.

Black Mountain is Matt Camirand, Stephen McBean, Jeremy Schmidt, Amber Webber and Joshua Wells. The band hails from Vancouver, British Columbia, and have been making music together since 2004. Their records chart territories unknown yet remain grounded by the roots of classic rock and roll. It is easy to discern these roots: Black Sabbath, the Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, Animals-era Pink Floyd, Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin and Can. Stephen McBean's vocals are a smoother, bluesier amalgam of the voices of Neil Young, Mick Jagger and perhaps a James Brown loaded on cough syrup. Amber Webber's vocals are something otherworldly and, by itself, almost incomparable. When their voices intertwine, the combination brings to mind the potency and chemistry of Richard and Linda Thompson singing together on Shoot Out The Lights, or of Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley howling together on Bat Out Of Hell.

Their debut album garnered an impressive amount of critical acclaim, including Pitchfork's prestigious "Best New Music" tag, as well as being deemed by Uncut magazine as the 4th best album of 2005. The band has toured the world, playing the smallest of rock clubs and the largest of outdoor amphitheaters. And the broad appeal of their musical work is unique, in that even though they are championed by the more underground-minded record-collector type of music fan as well as by high-profile musicians such as Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Their follow-up full length “In The Future” will be released on January 22, 2008.