Song of the Day: Mountains and Rainbows - See How They Run

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “See How They Run” by Mountains and Rainbows from the 2016 album Particles on Castle Face Records.

Mountains and Rainbows - See How They Run (MP3)

While the face of Detroit is no doubt changing, when is the last time you associated with with "mountains and rainbows"? That's about to change. As legislators fight to save its crumbling infrastructure, leave it to the artists to reach new heights and find rays of light in America's most beleaguered city. Blue, R&B, garage rock, techno and other styles have all thrived at various times in Detroit's rollercoaster history, and today, at possibly the city's lowest dip, all kinds of bands are finding their voices. Mountains and Rainbows have been throwing their for nearly a decade, but it's only now that their lo-fi psychedelic punk sounds have been put to plastic. The five-piece, let by Tyvek drummer Matt Ziolkowski, a.k.a. Matt Z, teamed up with Thee Oh See's John Dwyer to produce their debut LP, and given the time from the band's genesis to the album's release, it's understandably a double. Eighteen songs ramble and rollick, flail and freakout at mostly breakneck speeds while threading through a dizzying array of influences and styles, channeling old school art and surf punk, scuzzy garage and bluesy bar rock, noodling no wave, and scraps of anything else found on the shop floor. Matt Z's vocals hit the perfect weird spot, the one John Dwyer knows so well, somewhere amid the strangled yelps of Jello Biafra, David Byrne, Lux Interior and Gibby Haynes. Older fans will definitely catch those Butthole Surfers and Dead Kennedys references, while younger ones might think Black Lips and, of course, Thee Oh Sees.

Check out the rousting album track "See How They Run", featured as today's Song of the Day podcast, and find out more about Mountains and Rainbows on Facebook and Soundcloud. They don't have tour dates yet, but hopefully they break through the marine layer clouds of the Northwest some time this year. For now, check out another song, "How You Spend Your Time", from the double-LP Particles: