Cash Mountain

Ead Wood have always walked a tightrope between surreal levity and disarming confessionalism. At the drop of a dime, lyrics referencing everything from Home Alone to the absurdity of human skin can turn to sincere reflections on identity, loss and environmental collapse. But the last few years have seen another motif cut through their releases: a steady, unwavering dissatisfaction with modern life. Whether it’s ruminations on range life (‘Peace In The Pines’) or one’s own incomplete identity (‘Who’), songwriter Ed Soles (Langkamer, GORK) has never failed to cast a light on the day-to-day existential struggles of a working artist.

Now, Ead Wood return with their debut album Cash Mountain via Breakfast Records - with a new single in tow. The first to be previewed from their new material, this motif is once again brought to the surface, albeit in a slightly unusual form. Although a full-throttle rock and roll jam at heart, laced as usual with the band’s trademark alt-country influences, Cash Mountain finds Soles juxtaposing life under late capitalism with the notorious story of British fraudster Charles Ingram. As Soles states: 

“I heard that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was originally called “Cash Mountain” and I thought it was such a great title, so great that after researching the Coughing Major scandal the chorus basically wrote itself. The verses were also inspired by Ingram’s line after his introduction, where he said “if he was to win any money he would like to buy his daughters a Pony”. It’s a classic story of hustle culture, fraud, deception of the nation and inevitable downfall that now feels par for the course today.”

Recorded alongside producer Ben Andrews at Cavendish studios, Cash Mountain is also emblematic of Soles’ more ambitious approach to the band’s new material. Originally tracked half a step down before speeding it up during mixing, the studio band improvised a variety of overdubs and harmonies on clarinet, 12 string guitar, whistle, banjo, pedal steel and piano. The result is a dense, but never overpowering arrangement that highlights Sole’s recent growth as both a songwriter and composer. With the Ead Wood project journeying ever deeper into alt-country experimentation, Cash Mountain marks out Soles as a subtly original force in the UK independent scene, with plenty of charm and ideas still up their sleeve.