The Acorn, the tree and the woman with the strength of a Mountain

[lizish]

The Acorn's Glory Hope Mountain, is getting all kind of (deserved) critical praise up here, and not just from me and Kalle. This latest article is taken from the Globe, the national equivalent of the NYtimes and I can only hope the love of this cd spreads south.

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ertainment/home

 

The Acorn doesn't fall far from the tree

 

BRAD WHEELER

 

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

 

November 23, 2007 at 9:13 PM EST

 

It's not unusual for a mother to tell her only son fairy tales. But when the son is a young man, and when the stories are true, things get more interesting.

 

"Interesting" is one of the words for Glory Hope Mountain, the recently released album from the Acorn, an Ottawa-based indie band led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Rolf Klausener. It was Klausener, disenchanted with traditional sources of inspiration and tired of first-person songwriting, who decided to base an album's material on interviews with his mother, Gloria Esperanza Montoya, a half-Mayan Honduran emigrant whose childhood memories are of dirt floors, flooding rivers and orphanages, not hopscotch, puppy dogs and pigtails.

 

Another word for the album of fluid, atmospheric folk-rock would be "elaborate," though Klausener himself doesn't see it that way. "I didn't set out to be ambitious," he says from Ottawa, "but it turned out to be a relentlessly unending set of tasks to get the record done, beyond songwriting and arrangements. The recording process and the research process were what was needed to get this idea done."

 

The research involved an investigation into Central American folk rhythms as well as discussions with his mother about her often perilous early years. Those recollections inform the surreal, poetic narrative of Glory Hope Mountain (the album's title is a literal translation of the words of his mother's name): A baby is born struggling ("Your rosy lungs were empty"), a surge in the river almost sweeps children away ( Flood Pt. 1 and Flood Pt. 2) and a young girl runs away from an abusive father ("as far as these crooked legs will take me").

 

The lyrics, some addressed to his mother and some in his mother's voice, are image-laden and fanciful

[DAngerer09]

Just listened to this again last night. It's great to hear the story behind it. I'll have to listen again, paying more attention to the lyrics.

[giraffo]

I'm sorry, but I can't see anything but "Glory Hole Mountain" whenever I see that title..

[Mystik Spiral]

Great story, great album. Thanks, T.