Other Mountains new full-length album "Fernweh" really hit home for me. Lately I’ve had this nostalgia for the kind of music I grew up with, back to the days of Saosin or adolescent Bright Eyes. The kind of music some referred to as…dare I say it…"emo". I never understood why people took that word as a bad thing…I mean, if music isn’t composed of pure emotion, then what is it? Anyway, the songs scrape the deeper parts of the heart and soul, in ways I can only compare to that of Sigur Ros or Explosions In The Sky. The album starts with twinkling keys and climbing violins, throwing you straight into the overall mesmerizing feel of the record. The faster paced "Mure" ends with crashing cymbals and the instruments seem to scream in your face. The falsettos foating over haunting piano keys in "Swann" create a dark, eerie element. Their music puts you into a sort of trance, so it’s easy not to notice the lyrics right away. But the closer you pay attention, the more you notice how well-written the words are…in an almost Shakespearean way. "Say aloud before you go: ‘Oh, the heart could it think, it would surely stop beating. And the mind could it feel, it would surely stop reeling.’ I’m yours. I’m still yours. You are heaven. You, our heaven. There is life before death, I know." make up the track "Hopscotch".
Matthew Oden and Marc Kohlbry said a lot of the inspiration for the record came from their travels to Japan. They are currently offering a free download of their "Japan EP" on their website, before the release of "Fernweh" on March 14th. You can also listen to the first track, "Do They Have Souls? I Don’t Know" here. As Kohlbry told us, "After failed relationships, lots of beer at El Prado in Silverlake, and the accidental discovery of Matt’s voice in a church at 3am with a bottle of whiskey, we decided to make a record in a final attempt at feeling. Not sure if it worked." Well, it worked for me.
–Jenna Putnam
