Mountains of Jura’s second album, and second self-titled album, is a mesmerizing waft of textures that takes its time to unfold, showing truly fascinating colors and ideas through its deliberate layering, expansive production, and sublime sonic depth.
Mountains of Jura, based in Los Angeles, is a musical project run mainly by a duo. Daniel Cleland on guitars and vocals, and Jason Damiano on bass, accompanied by drummer and producer Greg Paxton. The group’s sound is massive, heavy on reverb and progressive structures, tangential to shoegaze, Mountains of Jura prefer not to name their albums, and feature minimal vocals that play a more textural part to the songs than poetic or contextual. Instead, the group prefers to let the music do most of the explaining.
With their first release becoming enigmatically known as the owl album, because it featured a drawing of an owl on the cover, the group’s second might eventually become known as the lynx album, for the same reason. The lynx album starts on the right foot with ‘Old Leon’, introducing the group’s stylistic approach and dense production, which is carried out by Kramer, producer for Low and Galaxie 500. ‘Old Leon’ is slow and features a trademark shapeshifting rhythm that seamlessly slows down and hastens as the song progresses. The shimmering, overdriven guitars, which are to become familiar through the album’s 7 pieces, also make their remarkable entrance on the song. Again, the shimmering, glacial reverbs, and acidic, trebly overdrive are vital in composing the complex textures of the songs, as well as delivering the meandering, long-winded, and quizzically curious melodies.
‘The Cave’ follows suit with more textural vocals and guitars. With uniformly melancholic chord sequences, and agoraphobic vastness, Mountains of Jura’s sound is decidedly dark and testing up till this point. ‘I Am Not a Program Parts 5&6’ has a more pronounced composition, with a tangible bass and drum groove to back the massive wall of guitars and vocals. The warmth of the sound of the rhythm section introduces a roomy facet of Mountains of Jura that was unexplored in the two previous pieces. ‘Reverse Creek’, and its twin ‘Lost days’, have an astoundingly slow and slumbering tempo that is masterfully handled by the group. Bittersweet chord sequences with lamenting melodies are supported by a restrained, sparse drum beat. ‘Reverse Creek’ is easily the album’s most expansive and awe-inspiring composition, also the darkest and quite possibly the saddest, while ‘Lost Days’, with the introduction of the human elements via Cleland’s voice, does a lot to lighten the mood.
The dissonance of the main chord progression of the penultimate ‘Ocelot Path’ is haunting and ethereal. The album’s shortest piece, at 3 and a half minutes, ‘Ocelot Path’ can be considered an eerie interlude before the gargantuan closer that is ‘Oracle’. A trudging behemoth with the album’s most pronounced vocal part and melodic composition, ‘Oracle’ is a dramatic closer that carries the album gracefully to its end through rhythm shifts and decidedly lengthy transitions. A bold undertaking.
Mountains of Jura are nothing short of sublime on their second full-length release, the lynx album. A uniform listen of the darkest and sweetest progressive ambience and shoegaze, the group are showcasing themselves as a group of immensely professional individuals totally in control of their sound, with terrific musicianship and an equally terrific taste in arranging and writing deliberate, slow, wistful, but hauntingly beautiful compositions. The work of Kramer is the cherry on top, bringing value and weight to a sound that is already difficult to pull off. The lynx album is a superb listen that can be easily classified as essential for the lovers of the genre.
