On The Verge

Mountain Man

Bennington, Vt.
No Man’s Women
www.mountainman.bandcamp.com

A little more than a year ago, Mountain Man was born at Bennington College in the small town of Bennington, Vt. Comprised of three angelic female voices (no man in this band), Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath sing beautiful, haunting a cappella or lightly backed acoustic American folk music, similar to the sirens of the river from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? The girls weren’t even really friends at school, but after stumbling upon their collective powers, forming a group almost seemed to be a given. “Since the first time we ever sang together, something happened between us that I’ve never felt,” says Sarle. “That’s why we kept singing. We didn’t necessarily think we were ever gonna go on tour or record an album, we just did it because of the way it felt.” Now band has a debut record, Made the Harbor and are touring the country, benefiting from the contemporary folk resurgence led by bands like Fleet Foxes and The Low Anthem. But Sarle is hesitant to latch on to any scene; it’s more primal for her. “More than our music sounding like folk, it’s about the experience of seeing us play,” she explains, “and hearing the harmonies we make inside of your body.”