photo by Ryan Walter Wagner
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Mary Lou” by Black Mountain from the 2012 soundtrack Year Zero on Jagjaguwar.
Making a high-concept surf movie about a group of renegades in a post-apocalyptic world and need some crunchy music to go along with it? Black Mountain is your band! The Vancouver-based group, known for some heavy stoner riffs and experimental yet engaging psych rock, help shape the world of Year Zero, directed by Joe G., and its cast of Mad Max meets Spicoli surfers. Today’s featured song, “Mary Lou”, is one of the five new ones on the soundtrack (the rest are previously released but here re-imagined). Clocking in at nearly 8 minutes, “Mary Lou” itself is roundtrip through a wasted landscape, building pummeling licks upon a burgeoning drone and carrying aloft singers Stephen McBean and Amber Webber’s combined vocal wail. You can’t help but press down down down on the accelerator as you speed wildly toward the next crashing wave. Check out the promo to this beautifully shot 16mm film here:
