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SOUND SOUNDTRACK ON THE MOUNT 25 years after firs
t crossing musical paths, Steve Shannon and Cillian McDonnell are bringing out their sonic world-building debut release under the Mount Alaska moniker. words Danny Wilson photo Dorje de Burgh The two clearest routes to changing your perspective are elevation or experience. Mount Alaska’s debut LP Wave Atlas: Season One is far from wanting with regards to a unique viewpoint, as reflected in the eight shimmering, evocative, dynamic transmissions that make up the LP, not to mention the unorthodox approach that characterised their conception. So, considering that, based on a cursory googling the frosty peak that furnished the Dublin duo with their moniker appears to be a fiction, it stands to reason that it’s experience rather than altitude that has afforded Stephen Shannon and Cillian McDonnell with their uncommon angle on things. The duo first crossed paths in 1994 and quickly bonded over a shared love of dance 78 and electronic music. Records were bought, shared, DJ’d and dissected together for a decade before Shannon and McDonnell began working together in earnest, as Shannon extended McDonnell the invitation to join experimental indie-tronic outfit Halfset – then Shannon’s principle avenue for releasing music. “I came to Halfset late,” begins McDonnell. “Steve invited me to play live, it was after the band had finished a record. I’m not the greatest drummer in the world so I was wondering why he even asked me. I came to realise that it was more about the fact that I had a good understanding and grounding in electronic music and I knew through being friends that was really important for him; that a drummer understood what they were playing, understood the history, the reference points, could talk the language of electronic music.” With the dissolution of Halfset, the members went their separate ways. Though, the closing of one chapter read as an opportunity for McDonnell and Shannon to lean full bore into the synthetic music that had long soundtracked their friendship. “We never stopped,” begins Shannon, whose day job finds him involved in extensive soundtracking and film-scoring work from his home studio. “When Halfset finished, we carried on meeting up a couple of times a week to make music. We were just trying things out and messing around with a couple of new ideas. We had this thing that