A Glimpse For Bobby – When Mountains Speak (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Although written in tribute to the recently departed Bob Weir, visionary musician and one of the founder members of The Grateful Dead, you could argue that “A Glimpse of Bobby” sits quite a way away from their eclectic, jazz-infused, country rock sound. But that would be to miss the point. While you would be hard pushed to imagine this new one from When Mountains Speak on one of their albums, the spirit that runs through every note and beat is one that Bob and the band would surely have recognized.

Musician and writer Lenny Kaye once described The Grateful Dead as making music that “touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists.” I feel that Steven Clarkson, the man behind WMS, walks similar paths into the artistic unknown.

And if that band has been praised for variously inventing, or at least popularising everything from psychedelia to country rock to laying the foundations on which prog rock would flourish, again, When Mountains Speak have the same mud on their sonic walking boots. The improvisational nature of much of the music that Steven makes under this musical moniker also reflects the Dead’s jam-band vibe. Although they were often trying to get the party started, WMS serves as a conduit to deeper, more insular, soul-searching explorations.

“A Glimpse For Bobby” takes the form of drifting, avant-garde, free-form prog-adelia, so avant-garde in fact that I have to invent compound words to act as the loosest of handles for the music. The guitar floats in a trippy space between eastern drums, squalling sax, and spacey sonics, a place that The Dead would recognise as their world, and therefore When Mountains Speak as fellow sonic travellers.

This ten-minute exploration is the perfect example of what Buddha meant when he said that it is better to travel well than to arrive. The song might feel like it is going nowhere when in reality it is going everywhere. You just need to be enlightened enough to see.

So here’s to you, Bobby Weir. Thank you for the music, thank you for showing us how to break the sonic mould, thank you for being wilfully different, and may this ethereal and adventurous anthem help carry you to whatever lies next for you.