Buck Meek – Texas-bred singer/songwriter and Big Thief guitarist – presents his new single, ‘Paradise’, from his first album for 4AD, Haunted Mountain, out 25th August.
Haunted Mountain was recorded live to two inch tape, with Meek’s band – Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), Mat Davidson (pedal steel, bass), Ken Woodward (bass), and Meek’s brother Dylan Meek (piano, synths) – playing together in one big room with no headphones. The band is always finding their sound, every time they pick up their instruments, and you can hear them forming anew on ‘Paradise’, where attention is thick in the form of spaciousness and the supportive listening becomes atmospheric.
Of ‘Paradise’, Meek adds, “Sometimes when you half-hear something spoken, something unspoken inside the words is revealed. Your mind fills in the blank, finishes the sentence, infers deep meaning – though you still can’t fully explain it. Jolie Holland sent me some of the lyrics for this song, about feeling in awe of the vastness within a loved one, and I wrote it thinking about how love often feels too big to comprehend, like death, or life after death, or space.”
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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.”
The songs on Haunted Mountain were written in mountains: by cold springs in the Serra da Estrela 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 Buck now calls home — all where his new love was born. 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 Ranch in the border town of Tornillo, where Haunted Mountain was recorded. 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.
Buck Meek will be hitting the road later this summer, including a newly announced New York headline show.
August 2023
18th – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, UK
19th – Langs Akerselva, Oslo, Norway
21st – Stengade, Copenhagen, Denmark
22nd – Kantine am Berghain, Berlin, German
23rd – Noorderzon Festival, Groningen, Netherlands
26th – Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, UK
27th – Stereo, Glasgow, UK
28th – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK
29th – YES, Manchester, UK
30th – Lafayette, London, UK
September
1st – Botanique, Brussels, Belgium
3rd – Into The Great Wide Open Festival, Netherlands
5th – Paradiso | Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, Netherlands
6th – Le Hasard Ludique, Paris, France
12th – Magnolia Segrate, Milan, Italy *
13th – Spazio211, Turin, Italy *
14th – La Paranthese, Nyon, Switzerland *
16th – Locomotiv Club, Bologna, Italy *
October
27th – Racket, New York NY, US
* = solo shows