We don't have to look far to find the results of what happens when filters are removed and people create what they think they want to create. Most often, it's chaos. It takes the truly gifted artist, at the exact moment when personal uncertainty is as its peak, to reach within and draw out music both noticeably free from constraints and laser-like in its focus. Michael Gungor, through the musical collective known simply as Gungor, has achieved just such a work. Setting aside his reliance on what he called
metaphysical constructs I'd known all my life, Gungor has tapped his considerable musical reserves for a song set simultaneously re- velatory in its lyrical content, ambitious in its sonic scope and compelling in its approachability. Finally given the opportunity to self-identify, Gungor uses his skills as an accomplished multi- instrumentalist, arranger and producer on
I Am Mountain to kick off a journey of stories told, some personal, some allegorical, but all honest and forthright. "
There's that sense of searching, wandering and loss within all these songs," Michael says. "
On the other side of that, there's a rebirth of hope and life within that. There's a freedom and em- brace of mystery and the unknown, and finding a joy and childlikeness within that." Michael's path of creative rediscovery allows the tracks on
I Am Mountain to exist in their own needs, be it the dark east/west musical dichotomy of
The Beat of Her Heart or the me- lodic hooks of
Long Way Off, from the galloping synths of
God And Country to the descent from beauty into deconstruction in
Upside Down. Michael shares vocalizations in Gungor with wife Lisa, and together they interact, counter-play and underscore each song's arc with precision and versatility, be it the plaintive whisper of
Yesternite, the lost-then-found effect choices made on
Wandering and ‘70s-era evocation on the chorus of
Let It Go. In this age of musical homogeneity, such diversity might be a danger sign. But Gungor's deft manipulation of such moments piques interest not only in the immediacy of an individual song, but throughout the album's listening experience as a whole. That variety is most assuredly on purpose.
CD Details
- Release Date: September 24, 2013
- Record Label: Hither & Yon
- UPC: 859710940034
- Number of Discs: 1
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