Mineral/The Gloria Record singer Chris Simpson has just released his second album as Mountain Time, Dream Homes, via Spartan Records. Following the folky vibes of 2020’s Music For Looking Animals, Dream Homes finds Chris going further down a baroque pop path, taking influence from artists like Big Star, The Innocence Mission, and John Cale, all three of which appear on the list Chris made us of albums/songs that inspired Dream Homes. As he explains, Dream Homes is less a new direction and more of a long time coming for him; some of the material he wrote for this album dates back to when he started his Zookeeper project in the mid 2000s, and Chris says The Innocence Mission’s Karen Peris has been a core influence on his singing since the Mineral days. His delicate voice and songwriting style works perfectly with the sweeping arrangements of this album, and you can definitely hear the way these particular influences come through. Stream the LP and read on for what Chris had to say…
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THE MUSIC THAT INFLUENCED MOUNTAIN TIME’S DREAM HOMES
by Chris Simpson
Big Star — Third
This was a big record for me, both when I was originally writing a lot of these songs and we were first recording them in 2005, and as a touchstone the last few years as we were properly arranging, recording and mixing the record. I love the simultaneous feelings of chaos, beauty, grandeur, and shambles that is this record. There’s really nothing like it. The stark despair and the unhinged joy. The song “Holocaust” is the first thing I heard by Big Star back in the ‘90s and it took me out at the knees.
John Cale — Vintage Violence and Paris 1919
This pair of John Cale records were also a huge revelation for me in the early Zookeeper days. Again the juxtaposition of a kind of loose rambling exhilaration and a deep atmospheric beauty. The honky-tonk blended with the classical elegance, and John’s voice devoid of any pretension, an emotional anchor at the center of it all. Such a deep resonance and purity here.
The Innocence Mission — “This Thread Is A Green Street” and “Midwinter Swimmers” (Singles)
The two singles released so far from the forthcoming new album, Midwinter Swimmers, is an excellent opportunity to note that The Innocence Mission are by far my longest-standing and most consequential inspiration. Ever since I heard their second record, Umbrella, when I was in high school in 1991, my trajectory has been forever altered.
When people wondered where I got so many of my idiosyncrasies as a singer in the Mineral days, the answer was 100% Karen Peris. I’m honestly not sure if I would ever have found my voice as a singer, songwriter (or lyricist) without her. Since their first three records on major labels back in the late-’80s and early-’90s, Karen and Don Peris have retreated largely from public life, rarely playing live, but have continued to make stunning record after stunning record of homespun, fragile, pastoral domestic Americana and folk that owes as much to ‘60s French Pop and Romanticism as anything.
Karen Peris — A Song Is Way Above The Lawn
A constant companion during the last few years. Karen’s second solo record was somewhat mysteriously marketed as a children’s record? At any rate, there is nothing that would otherwise characterize it as such, save for the usual childlike wonder she seems to have maintained in the face of the world, and the purity and innocence of her tone and delivery and lyricism. All the elements that make The Innocence Mission records so invaluable to me are here. I think more than anything this is down to the sense of calm and comfort and serenity I get from listening to and inhabiting these records. It’s just a feeling I never want to lose which leads to me spending an inordinate amount of time enveloped in these magical worlds she creates.
The Whiskey Priest — Grief & Praise
Seth Woods co-produced this Dream Homes record with me and has been with me since the early Zookeeper days. His latest record came out last year as we were working on finishing Dream Homes and served as a wonderful reminder of the strength and wisdom of the collaboration. Seth has made a gorgeous record here in which he challenged himself to write and record from a different place, eschewing the usual guitar-based arrangements, and it is an inspirational and joyous endeavor. Seth and I have so much common musical and inspirational ground, and hearing him continue to expand and explore his own work is always a boon to me and takes me back to those early Zookeeper days when we spent our shifts at the Star Seeds diner in Austin sharing music and deep conversations about life, love, mystery and transcendence.
Alex Dupree — You Winsome, You Lonesome
Alex Dupree co-produced this record with Seth and I and has also been an integral part of my journey since the Zookeeper days. I’ve been enamored with Alex as a singer and songwriter since first hearing a record he made on a four-track with a house full of friends back in 2004. He, like Seth, has been a persistent inspiration to me not just musically but in life, and although his travels and journeys have taken him far and wide, I always cherish an evening on my front porch talking with him about all and anything, and am so glad he is back in Texas where it feels like he belongs. This record is accompanied by a wonderful tour of the entire state by Alex called the Texas Doesn’t Care tour and I am thrilled to be a witness to his greatness. The song “I Deal” on this record stuns me.
L.C. Franke — Still In Bloom
Jeff is another of my longest-standing besties who made an absolutely bonkers record over the last few years of orchestral crooner jazz which has been on constant rotation. There really is nothing more inspiring as an artist than seeing your friends manifest their dreams and elevate their own art. It’s such an honor to witness. I cherish this record and the world making it entails. This is ultimately what it’s all about.
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Chris also adds…
At the end of the day, I don’t think any of us know how to get people to like or buy or stream or care about our work. It’s the modern conundrum. How to get our work out there into the world. How to make a dent. How to let these very personal extensions of our own hearts and souls fly into the mechanical and soulless and mathematical cruelty of the algorithms. In our best moments, I think we all know that none of that matters nearly as much as making our own animate and intimate worlds within this larger corporate machine world.