Clear Moon / Ocean Roar by Mount Eerie (2xLP)

Two records that came out in 2012, packaged here as a pair. Clear Moon is songs about a quiet life in and around a small northwest town, usually buried in fog, and the unexpected moments of clarity that briefly flash through, a resonant lone bell symbol, the glint in the water, the sudden breath. Ocean Roar acts as a counterpoint to the soft synth walls and landscape pondering, presenting the opposite of those clear glints of awareness:  a total wall of blue-grey oceanic fog, a half remembered dream of a trip through dense old growth hills to the gnarly winter ocean, in the middle of the night, decades ago.  This album is the audio equivalent of the blanket of thick dark water vapor that covers the Pacific Northwest for most of the year, revealing only brief glimpses.   The sound is not lo-fi as it is sometimes called.  It’s also not hi-fi.  These are just crazy recordings, bigger and deeper than any real-life fjord.  It’s 100% analog, and it is a sound that can only come from 15 month