Mountain Time, the project created by Chris Simpson of Mineral and The Gloria Record, has released new single “Meet The Kid” inspired by the music of The Kinks. This is intended to herald a new album to be released in 2023 via Spartan Records. The single is accompanied by a video.
Mountain Time explains:
The scene opens under a Big Top and proceeds through a vast cornucopia of dioramas (from the crush of middle school hallways, to the Christmas markets of Old Berlin; past angel choirs, Siren Songs of soul-stealing thieves and peril at sea) all in search of an elusive Golden Child, who isn’t paralyzed with fear or uncertainty at the weight of it all. In the end it’s never clear if the “kid” in question is the narrator himself or a symbol of the Seeker in us all, but the ride is thrilling, and the invitation to communion feels warm and ecstatic.
Mountain Time’s previous release, Music Looking For Animals, arrived in Summer 2020. In the aftermath of the dissolution of Emo / Indie rock bands Mineral and The Gloria Record, songwriter Chris Simpson took a step back from making music for the first time since his mid-teens. This period became a time of exploration pursuing “simplification, both personally and creatively”.
He says, regarding the Mountain Time project and their previous album:
I found myself exploring a lot of music from the 60s and 70s. The Van Morrison record, Astral Weeks was a catalyst I think. But it was Van and Leonard Cohen and Harry Nilsson and Bob Dylan and Randy Newman and Syd Barrett and David Bowie and Brian Eno and The Velvet Underground and John Cale. I wanted to write simple songs that I could play alone on a piano or an acoustic guitar. I also fell in love with the freedom and expression of a lot of jazz music from that era—so there was a lot of Thelonious Monk and Nina Simone in there too.
