Name: Dark in Here
Brand: The Mountain Goats

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

MRG726LPC1

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Colour

Blue

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: Yes

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

Housed in Gatefold Sleeve with Etched D-Side.

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2021-06-25

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Cargo

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

0673855072609

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Total Cap

2 / Extended format: Yes / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / blue

MRG726LP

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Black

Extended format: No

0673855072616

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2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

MRG726CD

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Download code: No

With 16 Page Booklet.

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0673855072623

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1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

The Mountain Goats

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Merge Records

Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. Founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan, it started as a platform to release music from their band Superchunk and their friends' creations. Over the years, Merge Records has grown to include talented artists from all over the world, with some of their records even reaching the top of the Billboard music charts.
With its headquarters nestled in Durham, North Carolina, Merge Records has become a renowned name in the music industry. The label was established by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan back in 1989 with a vision to share their own musical endeavors as well as support fellow musicians within their circle.
What began as a humble endeavor quickly flourished into something much greater. Today, Merge Records boasts an impressive roster of artists spanning various genres and backgrounds. From indie rock to experimental pop, *Superchunk* paved the way for other talented musicians to join forces under this esteemed label's umbrella.

The Mountain Goats are an American indie folk band formed in Claremont, California by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Although initially a solo project, Darnielle has collaborated with various musicians over the years. In the 1990s, they gained recognition for their lo-fi home recordings and releases on cassette or vinyl formats. Since 2002, the band has recorded studio albums with a full lineup. Currently based in Durham, North Carolina.

Line-ups:
<ul>
<li>1991-1996: John Darnielle and Rachel Ware</li>
<li>2002-2007: John Darnielle and Peter Hughes</li>
<li>2007-2015: John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster</li>
<li>2015-present: John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, Jon Wuster, Matt Douglas</li>
</ul>

Occasional members:
<ul>
<li>1991-1995: Sarah Arslanian, Amy Piatt, Rosanne Lindley</li>
<li>1995-present: Franklin Bruno, Erik Friedlander, John Vanderslice</li>
</ul>

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When the Mountain Goats got together in March 2020, it was to make not one album, but two. The idea was to again work with Matt Ross-Spang, the dashing Memphis wunderkind. Matt pitched we spend a week at Sam Phillips Recording, his home base in Memphis, followed by another at the storied Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a plan that dovetailed nicely with John’s notion of corralling these songs into two complementary batches: one light, one dark. The Memphis album Getting Into Knives, would be brighter, bolder, marked by rich and vibrant hues; the Muscle Shoals album Dark in Here, is quieter, smokier, but more deeply textured and intense. We were all aware of the mythos surrounding Fame. The second you step inside you transport to its early ’60s heyday and its louche mid-’70s denouement. The room we set up in is the room where Percy Sledge sang “When a Man Loves a Woman” and where Aretha Franklin recorded “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).” The Wurlitzer with which Spooner Oldham opens the last? It’s sitting right there. Spooner is living musical history, having played with everyone from Bob Dylan and Neil Young to Linda Ronstadt and Liberace, for crying out loud. And Spooner is all over Dark in Here any time you hear a bit of Hammond organ or electric piano chiming in without repeating a phrase. We tracked the album’s one outright banger, “The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower,” live with Spooner, and “Mobile” and “Dark in Here” with guitarist Will McFarlane another local veteran who played with Bonnie Raitt for years. We only had Spooner for two afternoons, though, and Will for just one. After it was just the four of us: John playing acoustic guitar and occasional piano, the rhythm section of drummer Jon Wurster and myself, and our jack-of-all-trades Matt Douglas picking up everything else. The result is something more stripped down and intimate than the lush arrangements of Getting Into Knives. Of “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums,” John concedes that the song is autobiographical. While the lines, “In a new universe / trying to find the mask that fits me” would take on a newly literal connotation in the weeks to come, the song is about going to late ‘80s metal shows at Fender’s Ballroom in Long Beach, and about seeking a sense of identity and community in strange and occasionally forbidding places. This theme feeling at once conspicuous and invisible, the frustrated craving for acceptance is echoed elsewhere. Then there are elegies to lost causes, some big and institutional (“The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower”), some small and personal (“Arguing With the Ghost of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review,” a tribute to David Berman, whose return from self-imposed musical exile had been cause for huge celebration in our camp). “Before I Got There” neglects to identify its victims, or the tragedy that’s befallen them.

John writes in the liner notes that “if you’re looking for a governing theme here, it’s calamity, as all the songs are either anticipating one or reflecting one that’s already happened.” Peter Hughes, Rochester, March 2021.

Dark in Here

Music GB

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