Jakob Battick & Friends - Heavy The Mountains, Heavy Are The Seas (self released, 2010)

Jakob Battick - Nine Brothers & The Wolf


Jakob Battick (and friends), the creator of that dusty autumnal EP Hiding In The Orchard made of recycled bingo cards, is back with another piece of folky amazingness. Although instead of making another charming record, he tore a hole in the gray sky and twisted his folk roots into some unsettling black monster.

Heavy The Mountains, Heavy Are The Seas starts out normally enough with "Always Returning / Never Returning," a nice slow moving acoustic number. But that track quickly devolves into a screaming epic of soul wrenching, howling at the moon type stuff. Loud, abrasive, and nothing like what I was expecting.

The next 3 songs follow suit. Creeping through midnight meadows, with lilting guitars and deep throated vocals echoing in damp attics. There's lots of loud-quiet-loud moments, spun around in a Battick-afied whirlwind of emotion, even some horns thrown in to complete the massive kitchen sink crescendo. And the final track, "A Silent Prayer," is where the magic happens. Grand as grand can be, crushingly beautiful, intense passion pouring out of Jakob. Absolutely amazing.

This isn't your average folk record guys. I'm not even sure it should be classified as such. It is, however, damn fine, regardless of labels. Jakob Battick has made another truly great fucking record. And, thankfully, I believe a full length is in the works.

Jakob Battick - Hiding In The Orchard (self released, 2009)

Jakob Battick - Sister Song


This is one I've been sleeping on for a while. I've been listening to it for weeks and have never been able to muster up the proper words to describe just how magically charming Hiding In The Orchard is.

Jakob Battick's been in a variety of projects including 1800s Sea Monster and Swollen Spring Violets, but unless you're from Maine, those names might not ring too many bells. He's also released some stuff under his own name, but Orchard is the first EP of all new material.

A good starting point for comparisons might be Beirut because Battick's wonderful voice kind of reminds me of Zach Condon's. The music is slow moving and very sleepy sounding; perfect for a moonlit autumn night, shuffling your feet through crunchy leaves on the forest floor. The minimal instrumentation sounds larger than you'd think it whould, making it nice and full. Still, somehow it feels like each guitar pluck and sung word is echoing throughout an open field, as if the sounds are only echoing off of each other and not physical objects.

Hiding In The Orchard is a beautifully understated record that probably won't be heard by as many people as it should be. Battick is likely destined for greatness and will one day have plenty of amazing full lengths that will be reviewed on Pitchfork and The Wire but for now, we'll just have to accept his gorgeous and humble EPs made of recycled bingo cards.