SOUNDING IN PARTS like a great lost record from Island’s ‘Pink Label’ era of the late ’60s and early ’70s, the debut album by Complete Mountain Almanac comprises 12 songs documenting one individual’s month-by-month relationship with nature and climate change. On a par with The Weather Station’s magnificent 2021 album Ignorance, it’s the work of Norwegian singer/composer Rebekka Karijord with lyricist Jessica Dessner and Dessner’s brothers Bryce and Aaron (of The National). Here, exclusively for MOJO, Karijord and Dessner have compiled a selection of female vocal tracks that inspired the album, which is out 27 January via Bella Union…
Low
More
Jessica Dessner: "This one song, on Mimi Parker's final record, holds all of the experience and feeling that catalyzed Complete Mountain Almanac."
LOW'S MIMI PARKER REMEMBERED
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Little Wheel Spin and Spin
Rebekka Karijord: “I love the intensity and urgency, plus the guitar-playing in this tracks inspired me when writing Complete Mountain Almanac.”
Mina
Dominga
Jessica Dessner: "I live in Italy, I wish I was Italian, I will never be Italian, but when I listen to Mina, I feel very close."
Kathleen Frances
Grown
Jessica Dessner: “Her singing here exemplifies our love of quietness in art.”
Diane Cluck
A Phoenix & Doves
Jessica Dessner: “Endless dharmic wisdom in this song - in so many of her songs.”
Joanna Brouk
The Space Between
Rebekka Karijord: "A playwright making instrumental music. Ambience with substance - Something I am always looking for”
La Force
Ready to Run
Jessica: Dessner: "This songs reminds me to count on moving around the world again, the way I used to, with a fire under my ass."
Buke & Gase
Hard Times
Jessica Dessner: “We would do anything to impress Arone Dyer as much as she has impressed us over the years.”
Aldous Harding
Zoo Eyes
Rebekka Karijord: "Such an original storyteller, where production and voice keeps revealing new layers to the story every time I listen."
Y La Bamba
Ojos del Sol
Jessica Dessner: “Here is a gift from lifting veneration out of the heart into song.”
Complete Mountain Almanac is released on January 27 by Bella Union.
BECOME A MOJO MEMBER today and receive every new issue of MOJO on your smart phone or tablet to listen to or read. Enjoy access to an archive of previous issues, exclusive MOJO Filter emails with the key tracks you need to hear each week, plus a host of member-only rewards and discounts.