![]() There is sincerity and humor, depth and mirth, all rendered with three voices that have never been more connected. The magnetic “Rang Tang Ring Toon” celebrates a night spent hosting friends, sharing beans and music, and a skinny dip under the stars. The dashing “AGT” finds inspiration in flower blooms and bumble bees, discovering in the sights of nature a pure self-reliance. The result, Magic Ship, is every bit as captivating as that day onstage: The stunning “Boat,” where cooing harmonies frame Sauser-Monnig like drapes around a sunny window, sees a world of possibility in a little vessel along the riverbanks. Months later, the trio reconvened at Meath’s home studio in Durham for two recording sessions, each bringing songs destined to be sung with old friends. Hanging on every note and between-song quip, the crowd stood transfixed and silent-a festival miracle, there in the woods. On a tiny, cabin-like stage tucked into a forest, where audiences of a few hundred are considered big, Mountain Man captivated several thousand, with people climbing trees and fighting through stinging nettles to catch a glimpse or whisper. Finally home, they focused first on their relationship, singing together only as an extension of this personal reunion.Īt last, they tested their again-blossoming friendship onstage in the summer of 2017 at the Eaux Claires music festival. They camped beneath endless desert skies and partied with true New Orleans abandon. Together as friends, not as a band, the three made an all-American road trip. When Sarlé was ready to leave California, though, Meath and Sauser-Monnig implored her to return east, saying they would even fly to her and drive with her across the country, so long as she settled in North Carolina. They kept in touch with near-weekly conference calls, growing as friends while taking a break from making music together. Sauser-Monnig returned to Minnesota, then decamped to a farm in the North Carolina mountains. Sarlé headed for a Zen center along the California coast. ![]() Acclaim came quickly, with their debut-2010’s Made the Harbor, humbly recorded on rickety equipment in an abandoned factory-earning praise from the New York Times and the Guardian and prompting big tours.īut before they could return to the studio, post-collegiate life intervened: Meath moved to Durham, North Carolina and eventually started Sylvan Esso. The three weren’t quite yet friends when they performed, recorded, and even toured for the first time, but they each felt the chemistry within their combined voices, a sense of artistic kismet and kinship that some spend lifetimes seeking. The next time the pair saw Sarlé, they sang “Dog Song” to, and then with, her. Meath demanded that Sarlé, nearly a stranger, teach her the tune, which she, in turn, taught to a friend, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig. She raced downstairs to find Molly Erin Sarlé singing “Dog Song,” a tender tune about lust, longing, and responsibility. In 2009, when she was a student at a small liberal arts college in New England, Amelia Meath heard a gorgeous sound coming from the living room of her dormitory. The wondrous Magic Ship-a magnetic fourteen-song reflection on the joys, follies, and oddities of existence-was well worth the wait. But for a trio of devoted friends for whom music has always seemed so effortless and graceful, that’s simply how life went. Whether you’re really into cinema like I am, or you’re just a regular Joe movie-goer, this film is very engaging and charming.Mountain Man did not intend to disappear for the better part of a decade, or to take eight years to release its second album, Magic Ship. All in all, this movie is worth the watch and then some. Seeing the two bickering brothers amongst all the snow and trees, especially at the part where Topher is literally fighting through a blizzard down this mountain, really makes you realize how wide the area is and how afraid they must be of the unknown. It had a lot of long/extreme long shots that showed the entire setting and gave the movie a certain open-endedness…it really made you unsure of what was going to happen next. The cinematography fit the style of the film completely, which I can appreciate. The setting is breathtaking and makes it completely believable that people would go camping there… until you see how brutal nature really can be (think: The Revenant). ![]() ![]() That being said, Mountain Men did not fail to deliver. The So I love nature films, especially with winter scenery. So I love nature films, especially with winter scenery.
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