The Mountain Goats

The Sunset Tree (20th Anniversary

Remaster) Apricot LP w/ Signed Obi Strip

The Mountain Goats is the long-running project of the prolific John Darnielle. After building a cult following throughout the '90s with a stream of boombox-recorded releases Darnielle signed to 4AD in 2002. It marked a major shift: for the first time, he embraced the studio as a creative tool. Between 2002 and 2009, 4AD released six Mountain Goats albums, the band is still active today and are on their 22nd release.

It's a mark of Darnielle's extraordinary fertility that, of the 800-plus songs he has recorded, only a handful directly concern his own life experience; THE SUNSET TREE's 13 tracks, written after Darnielle's stepfather passed away in December 2003, are the bulk of this small subsection. It's a collection of songs about the house that Darnielle grew up in and the people who lived there — an ensemble cast which includes Darnielle himself, an ex-girlfriend, his mother, stepfather, and sister; old friends and old

enemies. "I'VE PUT OFF WRITING ABOUT THIS STUFF FOR YEARS," he said at the time of its release, "BECAUSE I'M A LITTLE SQUEAMISH ABOUT MILKING MY OWN TRAUMA

FOR ART, AND GETTING GOOD SONGS RATHER THAN CRY-FESTS FROM THESE EXPERIENCES IS A REALLY

EXCRUCIATING PROCESS. AND ALSO BECAUSE MY STEPFATHER WAS STILL ALIVE."

Experienced as a whole rather than as a series of terrifying, frozen moments, THE SUNSET TREE is a redemptive rather than a remorseless record. As the liner notes say :

"YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE IT OUT OF THERE ALIVE."