Bastard Mountain – Farewell, Bastard Mountain

Album Review by Ross Watson | 30 Apr 2014
Album title: Farewell, Bastard Mountain
Artist: Bastard Mountain
Label: Song, by Toad
Release date: 12 May

Meadow Ghosts instantly paints a lush-yet-disturbing atmosphere which permeates throughout Bastard Mountain's debut; solemn strings decorate the aural landscape, guitar notes ring out quietly and croaked male and female voices whimper in and out of sight. A quick glance at the group's members reveals a number of talented players: Meursault's Neil Pennycook and Pete Harvey both feature on the record, as does Sparrow & the Workshop's Jill O'Sullivan. Reuben Taylor from James Yorkston & the Athletes also appears.

In the spirit of Cold Seeds, the collaboration from a few years ago between members of Meursault, Animal Magic Tricks and King Creosote, Farewell, Bastard Mountain blends together sweet instrumentation with drawn out atmospherics. Like that project, it also contains songs written by specific members which were then passed to the others to interpret vocally. Despite the improvised nature of these recordings, everything sounds like it was cut from the same cloth, and what we're left with is a fully formed work which gloriously showcases the best elements of the individual talents behind it. [Ross Watson]

Playing Edinburgh Queen's Hall on 29 May http://songbytoad.com