Summer Above Debut album released 7th April 2008 on Peacefrog ‘Hey Moon / Stockholm’ single released 24th March 2008 on vinyl and downloadSummer Above is the debut release from Chicago’s Speck Mountain. Already enjoying a lease of life as a US-import, Summer Above has drawn comparisons to The Velvet Underground and Mazzy Star and was voted fifth best album of 2007 by Manchester’s Piccadilly Records, Music Week’s Best Independent Record Store.Recorded in New York and Chicago in 2005 and 2006, Summer Above is entirely self-produced. Parts of it were taped in late night sessions at a New York voice-over studio Dubway, where the then-duo were allowed to record from midnight until 6am each day. “We had no idea how long it should take to make a song in the studio,” says bassist Karl Briedrick. “An ADD prescription came in handy and we were able to stay awake during those weird hours.”The album they produced is ethereal, magical and enthralling; dreamy, psychedelic pop-rock built on organ drones, shimmering guitars and singer Marie-Claire Balabanian’s soft, sedated, honey-dripped vocals. Everything here echoes, and everything glows.“Our music promotes escapism,” says Karl. “We hope that we provide a depressive but hopeful space for people.”
Speck Mountain started out as a band in a Greenpoint, Brooklyn practice space in 2005, named after the first and last words in Brett Easton Ellis’s Glamorama. Karl found Marie-Claire on the internet. “She ran a krautrock fan board and had cool hair,” he says. “She has Aretha pipes but she never considered herself a singer until I started bugging her online. It is sad and magical to think about finding someone with such immense talent who may have never explored it outside of the shower.”
Guitarist/tape delay player Kate Name came on board when Karl was living in Portland, Oregon, where she was a fellow former New Yorker. Completing the album in Chicago, the three fell in love with the windy city and decided to relocate there in summer 2007.
“People don't come to Chicago to get famous, or to live in the hippest city in the country,” says Marie-Claire. “People who make music here make it out of love.”
Speck Mountain