Mountains

The music of the New York duo Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, who perform under the name Mountains, requires patience—a lot of it, in fact—but it’s worth the effort. Mountains’ 2009 album Choral might totally pass you by the first time you hear it, and might sound like one long, uniform hum the second time. After three or four spins, though, the details that make Choral what it is start to break through the ambient electronic soundscape—piano and guitar, percussive found-sound samples, pulses of barely acknowledged rhythm all become evident after a while. The disc’s dramatic weight doesn’t come from the push-and-pull of tension and release but from the extended friction between that surface drone and what’s happening underneath.
The duo will release its new album, Centralia, on Jan. 22. (Matthew Everett)

Photo by Hisham Bharoocha.