Tom Henderson - September 28th 2023
Album of the Month - September
Buck Meek - Haunted Mountain
My love of Buck Meek stems from initially being transfixed by his A Sides & B Sides collaboration with his then-wife and current Big Thief bandmate, Adrienne Lenker.
There was so much to love. The Americana jangle in his vocals. The way they seemed to whisper to such great heights, often ricocheting like a rubber band melodically either side of his guitar playing.
Now into his third solo effort and fully fledged artist in his own right, Meek has delivered a sensational record about love and created with love and full of all the Meekness that has drawn my ears back in his direction for years.
“The intention was to make a hi-fi album that contrasted with the lo-fi approach of Two Saviors (Meek’s second record and one of my all-time favourites), while preserving the intimacy. Recorded live to two-inch tape, the group played together in one big room, with no headphones”.
“On Haunted Mountain, love often assumes a natural form — crystal ball dew-drops, green rivers and grasses, tears bottled. Sometimes it becomes artificial — mood rings, earrings, a pair of jeans, motorcycles and spacecraft. Sometimes cosmic — “I fell into a black hole with the hot flux of hazel” (from 'Paradise'). Love is a consciousness here, interacting with the lovers, greeting them, watching them sometimes, becoming them sometimes.
Meek believes that all of the great love songs have not been written yet. In between the lines of Haunted Mountain, we hear that love, in every form, is the creation of home, from within — forever leaving one to find another”. -4AD
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