If you like the colorful atmospheres of the North European music of today, be it folk, pop, jazz or experimental, here is something special for you. And special because you can’t label it in any way: the music combines aspects of all those tendencies, but goes somewhere else. The Holy Mountain is a Norwegian duo with two instruments we don’t usually find together, accordion (played by Andreas Angell) and drums (with acoustic and electronic parts played by Aleksander Tidemann, who also uses a vintage synthesizer). With a cinematic character and minimalist structures, the four pieces reunited in “Toad of Light” have the drone-like static particularities of electronic exploratory music, but also of the pulsating waves of psychedelic and kosmische rock. As the two musicians themselves state, this debut LP is the result of a contemplation of the «eternal universe and the isolated man», inspired by the «dystopian sci-fi visions of John Carpenter, Philip Glass and Daft Punk». If your references concerning Angell are his interpretations of works written by Scandinavian classical contemporary composers and his studies of Sofia Gubaidulina’s timbral, textural and spiritual symbolism, prepare yourself to be surprised. You’ve never heard an accordion doing this (and neither a drumkit)…

All music composed and performed by THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

Recorded & Mixed by Dag Erik Johansen at Athletic Sound Studio, Halden, Norway | Mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios, London, England
Produced by The Holy Mountain | Executive prodution by Travassos for Trem Azul | Cover art by Phillippe Druillet (Salammbô Glenat 2010) | Design by Travassos