Mt. Desolation

Mt. Desolation, the new alt-country side project of Keane's Tim-Rice Oxley and Kesse Quin, release their debut album, "Mt. Desolation on October 19, 2010 on Cherry Tree.

Those who have visited Dublin will know that sipping Guinness by a fire in a nice old pub while it's chucking it down outside is one of life's great pleasures. It's also, as you can probably imagine, the perfect setting for eagerly hatching wild ideas and schemes. And so on one such blustery and cold night in September two friends, Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin, decided (whilst in wildly animated conversation about music and probably also well on their way to needing a taxi home) that they would make a country album. As with so many ideas that come about on a belly full of Jameson's, in the cold light of day it did not seem like such a good plan. Two English men trying to sing like Hank Williams was definitely a recipe for disaster. The whole thing was forgotten about in the time it took to recover from the headache that morning. But the headache was to return.

Enlisting the help of friends from various other bands the newly formed group went into Eastcote studios in London at the snowy start of this year. With production wizard Emery Dobyns (Anthony &The Johnsons, Noah &The Whale, Patti Smith), patiently manning the controls, the idea was to record as much of the album as possible live. For the finishing touches, they experimented with whatever extra noises they felt like (cue dustbin lids, anvils, bullhorns and heavily distorted theremins) and a supporting cast of friends who would regularly stop by and add their ideas, whether invited or not.