The Acorn is a band out of Canada. Their last album Glory Hope Mountain was inspired by the mother (seen on the album art) of lead singer, Rolf Klausener. This track, The Flood, has soaring lines and imagery, a hearty peppy melody that makes you want to meet his mom!
You can check out another track from the album, called “Crooked Legs”. It’s another great listen. But quite honestly, it’s a record that flows beautifully from beginning to end. Listening to just indiviual tracks is great, but from beginning to end is even better so go get it on iTunes, eMusic or Rhapsoydy.
More on The Acorn:
An interview on My Old Kentucky Blog
And as you’d expect from a band that writes about regions and moms, the music is subtly sweeping and agreeably melodic, or at least it is on the polyrhythmic road-traveler “Crooked Legs.”
In his mother’s native Honduras, lullabyes are traditionally sung by women, so Klausener recruited the heartbreaking vocals of Ohbijou’s Casey Mecija, and the results are stunning.
Glory Hope Mountain, the title of the debut LP from Ottawa’s the Acorn, is a loose translation of Gloria Esperanza Montoya, the given name of group-leader Rolf Klausener’s mother. In a touching, symbolic representation of her life as told to her son, these songs are Klausener’s own reinscription of his mother’s life story onto the landscape that helped shape it.
To come out with a concept album, let alone one so incredibly personal, as their first widely-available release was a risky move to say the least and even I, who had been looking forward to this record for nearly a year, had great reservations. Would the lyrics connect on a personal level? Would the traditional Central American instrumentation be used in a manner that felt natural within the compositions? Would I like it? Yes. To all.
The songs feel like a house of cards - like they can fall apart at any moment and I guess that’s what appeals to me. Glory Hope Mountain is a haunting, fragile piece of work that’s full of emotion.
KEXP-
During the two years it took to create the album, Klausener studied traditional Honduran percussion and rhythms, nowhere more apparent than on
The Flood, Pt. 1,which falls in with some of the best musical hybrids of the past year (Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer)
