Speck Mountain

Speck Mountain are an ambient-soul band from Chicago possessed as much by the grit of southern soul as the spell of infinite drones. Co-leaders Karl Briedrick and Marie-Claire Balabanian provoke each other with intuitive, womb-curled melody, exploded texture, and spiky, strutting rhythm—and so far I’m just talking about the guitars. Marie-Claire also keeps a full-sized Aretha loaded in her throat like some kind of ungodly spring reverb, but has the sense to only let her uncoil just enough, never overdoing it. Karl and Marie-Claire fill out the songs with lyrics in thrall to the mysteries of compulsion, and the ache and rapture of giving in. Sonically Speck Mountain are in thrall to vintage effects and recording techniques, although they’re always looking for the future rather than the past. Their studio mixes are subtle and painstaking, booby-trapped all over with headphone-happy detail. Their live sets project a loose, narcotic swagger, taking off from atmospheric majesty into full-on hypnotic assault.

THE TIMES (UK) - "4/5. what matters here is the voice of Marie-Claire Balabanian, which carves out a territory bordered on the one side by Hope Sandoval and Margo Timmins, and on the other side by Chan Marshall and Neko Case. Meanwhile, the guitarist, Karl Briedrick, takes his cues from the Velvets’ third album and late-1960s Stones."

Q - "a heavily addictive, comfortably numbing kind of experience."

MOJO - "their echoey shimmer has the ghostly quality of mist on the bayou."

Links
http://www.myspace.com/speckmountain