PHOTO: CHRIS COTE | Almanac Mountain explores universal minutia on new Cryptoseismology LP.
Fans of experimental bedroom pop will find plenty to love in Chris Cote’s new album and intellectuals who label themselves “secular humanists” will revel in his cryptic studies of the natural world.
Everything seems to take on a double meaning in the songs of Almanac Mountain. “Contingency Procedures” seems to be about the 2003 Shuttle Columbia disaster but Cote explains that a surface evaluation of his material will only cut skin deep and that the song is “really about the death of the hopes and ambitions of the 1980s.”
Luckily the heady nature of his music is tempered by an almost saccharine sense of pop which he uses to great effect on such stunning tracks as “Harborside,” a noirish flavored ballad with a string arrangement that appears to be plucked straight out of an old Hollywood movie and stretched onto an indie rock canvas.
It’s no surprise Cryptoseismology was tracked over the most brutal winter in recent New England history as its warm tones and otherworldly digressions feel like some kind of creative escapism. Lucky for us, the mind of Chris Cote is a strange and wonderful thing to behold.
