Buck Meek - Haunted Mountain (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

As a guitarist in the beloved band Big Thief, Buck Meek traffics in a precious brand of indie folk. On his own, the former busker with a distinctive twang is informed by the country sounds of places he’s lived, including Southern California’s Topanga Canyon and central Texas. There are traces of Gillian Welch and Townes Van Zandt in both his songwriting and storytelling. There’s also a sunshiny brightness to his Americana, as on the spirited "Cyclades." Guitars get raucous, like colts kicking up dust, as Meek recounts family lore about his father driving a motorcycle around a Siskiyou County, California forest and running into a gang of elk, and his mother playfully letting go of the steering wheel in Greece and sliding across the line toward a truck. "Secret Side" is beautiful and gently tumbling, as Meek sings about coming home and unexpectedly hearing your partner singing in a voice you've never heard before, singing words you've never heard before—and how none of us can ever wholly know another person. His voice cracks, a sort of exclamation point, as he marvels, "I saw you feel without a reason." Spare and simple, "Lullabies" lets Meek’s poignant voice shine against the quietly strumming guitar as he describes watching the agony and otherworldly delirium of childbirth, lifting lines from "You Are My Sunshine" while Mat Davidson's fiddle weeps quietly in the corner. The title track, co-written with Jolie Holland, is an amiable amble; the music is rustic and sunny (thanks in part to Davidson’s pedal steel) and the lyrics like a dreamscape: "Every dewdrop on this haunted mountain/ Is like a tiny crystal ball/ Early in the morning/ I peer into the living leaves/ And prophesy with the light of dawn." "Paradise" is lazy Sunday morning soulful, with Meek stretching to reach falsetto heights. "Didn't Know You Then" is a sweet country jangle with the beautiful looseness of R.E.M. covering Velvet Underground songs (see: Dead Letter Office). "Undae Dunes" finds Meek playing with dynamics—a determined, Flaming Lips-ish marching beat; howling, confused guitar—as he spins a tale about a boy who willingly goes up off with extraterrestrials: "Blue eyed boy, shining like a movie/ In corduroys kissing Susie … UFO touched down/ Climb on Jim/ "Please don't go" she begged/ But he was gone with the wind.

TRACKLIST

1. Buck Meek - Mood Ring
2. Buck Meek - Haunted Mountain
3. Buck Meek - Paradise
4. Buck Meek - Cyclades
5. Buck Meek - Secret Side
6. Buck Meek - Didn't Know You Then
7. Buck Meek - Undae Dunes
8. Buck Meek - Where You're Coming From
9. Buck Meek - Lullabies
10. Buck Meek - Lagrimas
11. Buck Meek - The Rainbow



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