- Let's face it: early mornings suck. But while Fontän's choice of song title may not get you salivating, on this single the Swedish duo, A Mountain of One, and Studio, each make the crack of dawn downright desirable.
The most forthright wake-up call is the original, which quickly sheds any trace of being a quiet alarm clock. "Early Morning" is basically space rock through a dancefloor prism. It initially fools you with its soft organ and forlorn vocals from Jesper Jarold and Johan Melin. Then the guitar comes in, takes over, and hurtles it into the beyond. "Early" careens through ghostly, jangly sections, resembling a montage from a '70s cop film crossed with The Rocky Horror Picture Show before climaxing in a full on rock out. Like Pink Floyd, "Early" requires you to have a bit of faith and revel in the theatricality and (in this case quite restrained) excess. If you can, you'll like this very much.
If the original is Hawkwind, A Mountain Of One's rework is The Doors. It's called a "Sun Up" rework, but resembles the kind of track you'd hear at the end of a festival. It's like sundown, the dark side of the sun, and "Strange Days" all rolled into one. A Mountain Of One let a glockenspiel carry the main tune, leaving the guitar to add emotional adornments. It's much slower and, as a result, the drumming more cinematic.
I'm the type of person that wakes up with a stretch and a half-hour shower, so Studio's version most resembles my early starts. The duo doesn't deviate far from their Balearic formula here: "Early" is pitched down and stretched so that all the effects and vocals echo into the ether. It lopes along like one giant yawn. Not that I've got anything against space rock, of course, but before 6 in the morning I like to take things real S-L-O-W.
TracklistA Early Morning
B1 Early Morning (Sun Up Rework By A Mountain Of One)
B2 Early Morning (Version By Studio)