[photo by acidjack – if you have a better replacement that you have the right to transfer, please send]
It says quite a bit that out of the many sets by well-known “jam band” luminaries and others at this tenth annual Mountain Jam, one of my very favorite was by my hometown band (and decidedly non-“jam”) band Lucius, who we first got acquainted with playing as a duo in a humble backyard, before the crowds and the record and the festival circuit. The ladies who played Backyard Brunch Sessions that day weren’t anything close to a well-known act at that point — they had one EP to their name — but what they already had was what would carry them to where they are today: talent, great songs and humility. Back then, we hoped for, but never could have predicted, the way this band has blown up, to the point that on this past weekend alone, they were scheduled for both Mountain Jam and the much larger Governor’s Ball back in the city.
Compared with my last outing with the band at Webster Hall (and another set I didn’t record at SXSW) this Mountain Jam set was revelatory. Simply put, this always-promising band has upped their game to where it needs to be to play these kinds of stages. Vocalists Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe have mastered their sound, their harmonies carrying well across Hunter Mountain’s wide-open space, and the band, consisting of percussionists/instrumentalists Andrew Burri, Peter Lalish, and Dan Molad is similarly able to play big, loud, and dialed-in. Lucius manage the difficult feat of sounding modern without coming across corny or derivative, while offering some of the same arena-filling fire that great female-fronted 80s groups like Heart used to be able to without sounding retro. They even served up a few bars of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” during “Turn It Around” (streaming below) just to put an exclamation point on that notion. Fittingly, I’m streaming “Nothing Ordinary” from this set below, because there is nothing ordinary about Lucius. This was by far the best set of theirs that I’ve seen, and they’re just getting started. Please support them — they’re on the festival and otherwise U.S., UK and Europe tour circuit until the fall, and their album Wildewoman is out there for purchase.
I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones from an optimal spot at the festival, and the sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!
Look for more Mountain Jam recordings in the coming days.
Stream “Nothing Ordinary”
Stream “Turn It Around”
Download the complete set: [MP3] | [FLAC]
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct download links or the files on other sites without our permission. Feel free to re-post the Soundcloud links. Please respect our request.
Lucius
2014-06-08
Mountain Jam X (West Stage)
Hunter, NY USA
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack
Schoeps MK4V (Right of SBD, PAS)>Sound Devices USBPre2>Sony PCM-D50>24bit/48kHz WAV>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter, punch/glue)>Audacity 2.0.3 (fades, tracking, amplify, balance, dither, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks [Total Time 43:54]
01 Genevieve
02 Go Home
03 Don’t Just Sit There
04 Tempest
05 Nothing Ordinary
06 Until We Get There
07 How Loud Your Heart Gets
08 Wildewoman
09 Turn It Around
If you enjoyed this recording, please support Lucius, visit their website, and buy Wildewoman directly from the band’s online store.
I love their voices. I actually just found out they did the vocals for San Fermin’s first album, they’re another bad I love, check them out. http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6443755/san-fermin-jackrabbit-song-premiere