THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
TRANSCENDENTAL YOUTH
TOM144 | released: 05/10/2012 | CD
via Anost (Europe)01 Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1
02 Lakeside View Apartments Suite
03 Cry for Judas
04 Harlem Roulette
05 White Cedar
06 Until I Am Whole
07 Night Light
08 The Diaz Brothers
09 Counterfeit Florida Plates
10 In Memory of Satan
11 Spent Gladiator 2
12 Transcendental Youth
As John Hodgman so eloquently wrote in the bio for the new record, "John Darnielle has written almost 600 songs now, and some of them are very sad, dealing with hard drugs and tragic ends, hurting yourself and others, sicknesses of both body and brain, off-brand alcohols. They are told in beautiful, unnerving, specific detail because he is a very good writer, and also some of them are
just true stories about his own life. These are the consolations; and if some of his songs suggest that there are real hells on earth, other songs remind that the heavens are equally close at hand. (Sometimes they are even the same songs.) It is my impression that this is the ecstasy John Darnielle is feeling: that thrill of having survived, escaped for even a second to enjoy those small transcendent
delights, and to sing of them. Transcendental Youth is full of songs about people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won't stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them." John Darnielle has been called "America's best non-hip-hop lyricist" by the New Yorker and last year was tagged on the cover as SPIN Magazine as, "Indie Rock's Greatest Lyricist".
Transcendental Youth was recorded at Overdub Lane in Durham with Brandon Eggleston and later mixed by Scott Solter at Baucom Road. For the first time, a Mountain Goats record features horns arrangements by Matthew E. White.