Name: Haunted Mountain
Brand: Buck Meek

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

4AD0601LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-08-25

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

PIAS

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

191400060111

Total Cap

Black LP

4AD0601LPE

Green

[r28081129]

Extended format: Yes

191400060104

Green LP

4AD0601CD

2023-09-08

191400060128

Artist

Buck Meek

Genre GB

Country / Americana

Label GB

Buck Meek is a folk musician best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of Big Thief. Born and raised in Wimberly, Texas, Buck was introduced to the guitar during his youth. His teen years were spent playing blues, manouche jazz, and western swing in bars and dance halls across the state.

After moving to Brooklyn, he self-released two EPs as a solo artist: "Live from a Volcano" (2013) and "Heart Was Beat" (2015). In the meantime, he connected with Adrianne Lenker, who he performed with as a duo before forming the band Big Thief.

In May 2018, Buck released his debut album through Keeled Scales. Later that year, he relocated to Los Angeles where he wrote most of the material for his next record. His second solo LP, "Two Saviors," was released in January of 2020.

The influential 4AD label was started in 1980 by music enthusiasts Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent with financial help from Beggars Banquet, whose record store chain the pair worked for. Originally called Axis, they released an initial series of four 7" singles before finding out that the name Axis was already being used by another label. They quickly came up with a new name, 4AD, inspired by typography on a flyer announcing their releases. Under Ivo Watts-Russell's guidance, drawing influence from other UK indie labels such as Beggars Banquet, Postcard Records and Factory, 4AD quickly established a unique identity thanks to both the cover designs of Vaughan Oliver/v23 and the label's unique numbering system.

In 1992, 4AD entered a highly publicized Stateside distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records, opening offices in New York headed up by Robin Hurley. The label was largely run from California for most of the decade after Ivo Watts-Russell moved to Los Angeles in the mid-90s. In November 1999 it was announced that Martin Mills had taken over as chairman and relocated its HQ to London.

Decoding their unique numbering system reveals various formats like mail-order only releases (4AD), LPs (CAD), MP3 downloads (EAD), posters (FAD), videos (VAD) and more. The numeric portion of their catalog numbers

Texas-bred singer / songwriter and Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek releases his new album, Haunted Mountain. His first release for 4AD, Meek also shares the lead single and title track, ‘Haunted Mountain’, a song co-written alongside his friend and long-time hero Jolie Holland.

Following his beloved 2021 album, Two Saviors, Haunted Mountain marks Meek’s third solo album. Haunted Mountain is about love and… something other. Something bigger than love, something that doesn’t challenge love exactly but stands in contrast to it. A soulfulness, or a soul-seeking fullness. Meek says that loves songs are the hardest write. “Not break-up songs, but an actual love song written in earnest? That is taboo now,” he says. “Sometimes it can feel like all the great love songs have already been written.”&nbsp;

Lead single ‘Haunted Mountain’ is anchored by sweet lyrics penned by Meek and Holland, who is also from Texas and shares co-writing credits on five of Haunted Mountain’s 11 songs. The first two verses and chorus of ‘Haunted Mountain’ were written by Holland as a love song to Mount Shasta in northern California, with the final verse written by Meek, together seeking reciprocity with nature. “It’s about being humbled by the thing you’re drawing power from only at which point an actual, fair relationship begins,” he says. Propelled by the pristine chemistry of his band, ‘Haunted Mountain’ is presented alongside a Riley Engemoen-directed video that captures the group’s in-studio magic.

560 miles from Meek’s hometown of Wimberly, TX, the Franklin Mountains – or more reverently named, Sierras de los Mansos – rise over the tops of the endless acres of pecan trees that surround Sonic Round in the border of Tornillo, where Haunted Mountain was recorded. The songs were written in mountains: by sold springs in the Serra de Estela of Portugal, on the submerged volcano of Milos in the Cyclades, Valle Onsernone in the Swiss Alps (where Haunted Mountain’s cover photo was taken), and the Santa Monica range where Meek now calls home – all where his new love was born.

On Haunted Mountain, love often assumes a natural form – crystal ball dew-drops, green rivers and grasses, tears bottled. Sometimes it becomes artificial – mood rings, earrings, a pair of jeans, motorcycles and spacecraft. Sometimes cosmic – “I fell into a black hole with the hot flux of hazel” (from ‘Paradise’). Love is a consciousness here, interacting with the lovers, greeting them, watching them sometimes, becoming them sometimes. It extends beyond romance, examining the inexhaustible bond between mother and sun, and asks – is love a form of magic? “When you are in love, it inhabits your environment, animates the inanimate, charging everything around you with a sense of meaning,” he says. “and not just new love; also love of many years.”&nbsp;

Since Buck’s self-titled full-length album, his band has remained consistent – Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), and Mat Davidson (pedal steel, bass on Buck Meek and Two Saviors). In the year or so leading up to recording Haunted Mountain, they were joined by Ken Woodward (bass) as well as Meek’s brother, Dylan, who joined them for the session on piano and synths. Produced by the band’s own Davidson, Haunted Mountain was recorded and mixed in two weeks by Adrian Olsen, who also performed the sound manipulation via modular synthesizer that can be heard throughout the album.

One intention was to make a hi-fi album that contrasted with the intentionally lo-fi approach of Two Saviors, while preserving the intimacy. Recorded live to two-inch tape, the group played together in one big room, with no headphones. In Davidson’s words, “the music here is an expression of a group. I asked for the job because I felt strongly that we shouldn’t bring in someone from outside the band. Otherwise, the only personal desire I had was that we be able to explore space, that we let the music open up and slow down in contrast to previous records – not in terms of tempo but rather overall movement, information between the beats.”

Meek believes that all of the great love songs have not been written yet. In between the lines of Haunted Mountain, we hear that love, in every form, is the creation of home, from within – forever leaving one to find another.

Haunted Mountain

Music GB

Discover Haunted Mountain by Buck Meek. His third solo album on 4AD, featuring the lead single 'Haunted Mountain'. Available in CD and LP formats.