Spartan Records and Mountain Time - the solo project of singer-songwriter Chris Simpson of Mineral and The Gloria Record - are proud to announce the Friday, June 26 release of his new album titled Music For Looking Animals (pre-order). In the aftermath of the dissolution of his adored bands, Simpson took a step back from making music for the first time since his mid-teens. And it was during this period where an affinity for the music of the 1960s and '70s such as Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Harry Nilsson, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and many more, along with the freedom and expression of jazz and artists who radically followed their own vision, took root.
With additional inspiration drawn from the arenas of psychology and eastern philosophy, the beauty of the natural world, Simpson's children and wife, old Time Life books, and the self-stated immenseness of the universe, Mountain Time has become almost more of a state-of-mind than a moniker.Simpson had the following to share about the forthcoming album:
"To me, it's a record about surrendering to your true self by letting go of what doesn't serve you anymore. It's about sacrifice and stepping into your own life. It's about all the paradoxes that exist: the most important of which is that vulnerability is the only real source of strength."
Mountain Time, both a reference to timeliness (or lack thereof) and a childhood amongst the natural beauty of Colorado evolved from Chris Simpson's previous solo project Zookeeper as the most fitting moniker for the latest project. With the transition, while the process and approach became more autonomous, the drive and ultimate desire to create remained rooted within many of the same wells of inspiration that fueled previous incarnations of Simpson's songwriting. For Simpson, much of what his new album, Music For Looking Animals, is externalizing are larger questions embedded within the natural passing of time: What things do we hold onto? What must we let go?
Music For Looking Animals track listing:
Rosemary, Etc.
Death Pause
Becoming All Things
Royalties
Empty Graves
Lady Of The Radiator
Foretold In G
Modern Living
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