SF0225 Mountains

SF0225 Mountains

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Australia has many positive attributes but height is not one of them. It has mountains, just rather unimpressive ones. Mt Kosciuszko is its tallest peak at a paltry 7,310 feet.

I’ve ascended two nations’ peaks, if you consider Wales a nation. To wit, Snowdon – on holiday with my mother in 1975 – and Mt Moldoveanu on a hiking holiday in Transylvania in 1982. The latter was the subject of an episode in the series “I Shouldn’t Be Alive”, where a man gets badly injured and benighted on Romania’s tallest mountain. When watching it with the family, I casually mentioned I’d scaled the peak, which I think quite impressed them.

The other thing I always let slip about that holiday is when a wolf came into the camp. I’m fairly sure it was a wolf.

This was an enjoyable episode to construct, as mountains suggest a wide range of themes and moods. There wasn’t even space for some classic mountain-related tracks such as ‘Sugar Mountain’ by Neil Young or ‘Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains)’ by Arcade Fire.’ River Deep, Mountain High’ is for other radio stations.

So, we have dance-punk from Gaijin Smash, a Japanese-Canadian outfit responsible for “fast driven lo-fi anti-pop bangers, often under the command of a paranormal drummer in a portable television”. Plus there’s power-pop (MxPx), a Smiths tribute act in all but name (Nobody’s Flowers), Americana sort of (Hurray for the Riff-Raff), ska trombone (Rico Rodriguez), harmony-rich folk-rock (Fleet Foxes), Hindi music (Gorillaz collab), surf rock (Pixies), cinematic sampled electronica (Public Service Broadcasting), garage punk (Thee Oh Sees), post-glam (The Fall), dub (Dubcreator), chamber pop (Isobel Campbell) and whatever Post Office Winter is.

Good to hear from them all. You may ask yourself, what is the mountain you want to climb in your life?