Mountain Caller: Shaping Their World

Progressive doom/post-rock trio MOUNTAIN CALLER turned more than a few heads when they unveiled Chronicle I: The Truthseeker back in 2020, its captivating blend of dreamy melodies, hulking riffs and deep conceptual lore proving a winning formula. Just over three years later and they’re unveiling its successor in Chronicle II: Hypergenesis, which promises to not only broaden their sonic horizons but those of the story’s protagonist (aptly named The Protagonist). We sat down with the three members, guitarist Claire Simson, bassist El Reeve and drummer Max Maxwell one evening to talk about both their and The Protagonist’s journey since The Truthseeker.

When we do, they’ve just finished a run of shows with fellow UK riffmongers URNE and are full of praise for the trio and the tour. “We didn’t get tired of watching them at all. They’re such lovely people,” El effuses. Max grins jokingly, “I was speaking to him the other day and we were debating starting a press beef. He’s mentioned me a lot in interviews, I need to clap back.” They’re all in high spirits after not only the tour, but with Chronicle II: Hypergenesis on the very near horizon after three years of hard work.

It’s an album born partly through the musical connection they share that’s only deepened since forming. “The mark of a good band playing together is when someone makes a little slip up, you all know instinctively where to go, where to pick up from,” smiles Max. El shares his enthusiasm, explaining of not only their formation that “we never intended necessarily to even record anything. We just wanted to make music. Simmo [Claire Simson] and I had talked about doing a band together for years and the three of us were friends long before we started.”

You can hear their musical connection; it’s the beating heart of not just Chronicle I, its Prologue EP, but of Chronicle II too. Onstage and during our conversation they share such an easy camaraderie that it becomes impossible not to see how much it helps form their music. That, along with a conceptual narrative that ties it all together drives Chronicle II: Hypergenesis to soaring heights as the band narrate through their (mostly) instrumental songs the journey of The Protagonist, picking up immediately where The Truthseeker left off with Dreamspirals. “She’s just discovered her powers, and reclaimed her voice,” Claire explains.

El continues, “In Dreamspirals she’s on the side of a mountain, weaving spells and glowing blue star charts start to draw themselves out on her skin. She uses these to navigate to the next part of her quest, partly running on instinct and following these markings. That’s what she’s doing in [Chronicle II opener] Daybreak, roaming across the land towards some kind of mysterious destination. She reaches the top of a hill and sees this massive chunk of land suspended in the air, the library that the Archivist resides in with waterfalls running backwards up to it, hewn to the ground with massive chains.”

It’s such a beautifully, richly detailed world, the trio all absorbed in a fantastical world they create together, something they’ve previously described as a feminist parable where The Protagonist reclaims her voice and her memory. One that, at odds with The Truthseeker, they’ve opted to go into somewhat more detail with the liner notes this time. “We’ve actually written it up,” grins El. While before, as Claire explains, “we weren’t sure that people would latch onto the story, it was almost something to help us write,” this time it’s been a must for fans of the world they create to read along to.

That said, while they’re opening up the world of MOUNTAIN CALLER more than ever before, they’re confident that it remains open to interpretation. “We were cautious on the first [album] of being too specific about the story,” Max explains, “but now, even though we’ve been quite clear about what is going on, what it means to people can still vary a whole lot. I know what it means to me, but I daresay it’s different to what it means to the others and different for the listeners.”

Of course, it’s not just the story of The Protagonist that’s progressed since The Truthseeker; the band have pushed themselves to expand on their sonic palette too, developing both as musicians and songwriters. One thing that’ll be immediately obvious to listeners is that Dead Language features far more singing than previous songs, though El stresses that it’s used “when it’s what the song demands,” seeing the voice as another instrument for them to use. In particular, this is where we see The Protagonist sat in The Archivist’s library, as she begins to unravel the tomes and runes in front of her and can now understand this language.

“It’s always nice to revisit that inner monologue,” Claire explains of their decision to incorporate The Protagonist as a very literal voice in the song. “We’re so detail oriented with everything we do,” she continues, explaining that not only was the storyline carefully mapped, but “from the concept all the way down to what we’re doing in a single bar.” Such an intense dedication to examining their own ideas, particularly given the spate of lockdowns that occurred during the writing and eventual recording of the album, led to more than a few moments where they found themselves second guessing their work.

“Through most of the pandemic and toward the tail end when we wrote more in the room together, I had quite a lot of unfinished ideas that I didn’t know where they were going,” Max admits, “and it felt to me that when we started jamming through them it came together quickly. The missing ingredient was the chemistry we have in the actual room.” Claire grins, remembering one of her own ideas for Into The Hazel Woods, the fourth track for the album. “I had a really lovely jazzy chord sequence I wanted to end it on,” she laughs, “and I took it into the room and these guys were like, have you heard of a band called METALLICA?”

Tonally, it’s also much broader thanks to their drive to evolve and expand, to explore as much of what they can incorporate under the MOUNTAIN CALLER banner. When Claire mentions having both an optimistic and pessimistic reverb, her eyes light up when we ask for the difference between them. “One is shimmery, it feels like light coming through the clouds,” she grins, “and the other is dark, like you’re in a cave.” “I love this,” El grins, “I’ve got four different types of bass sounds and she’s got 30 to 40 guitars.”

As we draw almost an hour talking to a close, it’s perhaps easier to see why MOUNTAIN CALLER have become so beloved by the UK’s progressive scene, to the point of a triumphant, all Chronicle II material set at 2023’s ArcTanGent. They joy and love they have for making music together (“I would love to be making music with these two goobers into my 90s,” El laughs at one point), along with a passion for telling stories that need hearing – particularly that of The Protagonist and the MOUNTAIN CALLER.

Chronicle II: Hypergenesis is out now via Church Road Records.

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