Tuesday 10 August 2010



CONTEST: The Mountains & The Trees made this for you!

QBiM SPiNS: The Mountains & the Trees I Made This For You

~ Contest details are at the bottom of today’s post ~

It feels like this review has been a long time in coming, and a quick trip through the QBiM Archives confirms it.  It was September 2009 that I first mentioned Jon Janes and his music as The Mountains & The Trees.  At the time I said “Janes plays guitar, banjo, ukulele, harmonica, bells, suitcase, whistles, hums, and sings.  He probably does the dishes and the windows, too.  If he keeps house anything like he makes music, then I’m certain he lives in a pristine and exquisitely arranged abode.”  Now, almost a year later, his music has its first proper home of its own, in the form of his debut album, I Made This For You.  The time between the release of the Hop, Skip & A Jump EP and this new record has seen The Mountains & The Trees’ stock rise:  heavy rotation and support from CBC Radio 3, blog love from yours truly and “the others”, and tours of the UK and at home with The Wilderness of Manitoba have pushed expectations for this high.

How high, you ask?  Almost impossibly high.  I Made This For You is an earnest and sincere love letter from the man to the fans who’ve helped make the whole endeavor possible.  From the title onwards, Jon and his cohorts (the ever-present and lovely Jillian Freeman, Andrew McCarthy, Celina Barry, Chris Kirby, Darren Browne, Dave Bridger, Jill Dawe, and Jill Peddle) are playing for the listener,putting on the best show for us possible.  You can’t fault them for the effort.  Songs familiar from the EP get a reworking, like “Goodbye Little Town”, whose added vocal embellishments and detailing give it a whole new sense of life.  “Up & Down”, TM&TT’s signature tune is present in a new version, with only the subtlest of changes (to the point where you know it’s a new recording but you just can’t put your finger on what’s different).  The new songs highlight Janes’ growing ability as a songwriter and storyteller, earning the title of one of Canada’s best new folk songwriters.

Much like Herohill, I find that I’m more a fan of the stripped back, bare bones Mountains & The Trees sound.  With the limitations of what one man can do with voice and instrument, Janes flourishes.  “The Times” is a perfect example of this, where just he, his guitar and harmonica draw the listener in for the majority of the song, before the rest of the band comes in.  When Janes  sings “…I invite you/to sing along/with this humble little song…”, he’s being serious:  in the winter he asked fans and friends from around the world to download a sample of the song and use their sound editing software to actually sing along with the track and send it to him for inclusion here.  It’s not big studio trickery or a gimmick, it’s all out love and support.  When the “la-da-de-da-de-das” start, I get a little choked up.

Writing and recording your debut album cannot be an easy task, especially when it seems a lot of people are putting a lot of pressure on you.  I Made This For You aims to please all of the fans who’ve been riding Janes’ bandwagon for the last few years, and for that we are grateful.  For album number two, though, I would love to hear Janes write and record an album for himself.  Hell, he can even name it I Made This For Myself for all I care, because by serving his own muse, he will be serving his listeners as well.

I Made This For You is available today, released independently by The Mountains & The Trees.

MP3: The Mountains & The Trees “More & More & More”
Myspace: The Mountains & The Trees
Twitter: The Mountains & The Trees

CONTEST DETAILS: To get yourself a copy of I Made This For You, just send an email to CONTESTS [at] QUICKBEFOREITMELTS [dot] COM with “I wrote this email for you” in the subject line and your your name and mailing address in the body.  Contest closes at 11:59 PM on Friday, August 13.  Thanks to our good friends at Killbeat Music and The Mountains & The Trees for providing the prize.  Good luck!





by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under Contests, MP3, QBiM SPiNS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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