Categories | taking tiger mountain

The birth of a genre is a rare thing. In this day and age, most new concepts are simply a bridge of two pre-existing ideas with a teeny little hyphen. With Brooklyn’s Previously On Lost, an epic and original genre is born: Recap Rock.

And Taking Tiger Mountain has an exclusive download courtesy of the band.

Previously On Lost spent the 4th season of Lost writing tunes inspired by each episode after they aired. Now that the show is done for the season, they’ve taken the full set of songs, which veer wildly all over the musical map, on tour. The music itself is a weird concoction: spastic indie rock with a definite Frank Zappa haze of weird. The vocals are an odd layered falsetto and have a kitchen sink approach to the instrumentation. There’s a definite feeling that reminds me of the beautiful chaos of The Unicorns, except, you know, all the lyrics are about Lost.

Which makes it ten times more awesome.

Songs like “Be My Constant”, “We’re Goin’ Home” and “The Island Won’t Let You Die” might give a clue to the episodes they correlate to. The lyrics are funny and sometimes just beautifully tic through the events of an episode in an almost linear manner with cheeky commentary. This, as a massive fan of the show, often just puts a big old smile on my face. You can’t beat the cop-show opening bongos and sappy keyboard on “The Ballad of Sayid Jarrah” tied with the lyrics:

“There he is on the back nine / with a 7 iron in his fist / money in the bank and a smile on his face, just hope that you’re not on his list / he’s armed to the teeth and a gun and effective hair spray / you may have picked the right club / but you’ve stumbled into murder on the fairway”

And that’s right before the sax comes in. If you’ve seen the episode in question (S04, E03 – The Economist, air date 02.14.08), it’s a pretty concise encapsulation of the show in question. Except when they get to the breakdancing bit at the end of the song. Trust me, just give a listen.

For those in the Los Angeles area, they’re in the midst of their mini-California tour with a show tonight at Spaceland, taking the stage at 8:30pm. Thursday 8/21 is the night I’d suggest you catch, as they’re playing the entirety of their Season 4 show at the Knitting Factory.

If you can’t make the shows, please take a listen to the exclusive download that the guys in Previously On Lost were kind enough to give me:

Previously On Lost – Gotta Take Your Meds

This song was written for episode 10 of season 4: “Something Nice Back Home” and features some amazing campy synth action and cowbell.

What more could you ask for?

If you do love it, you can buy their album The Tale of Season 4 and the Oceanic 6 from iTunes

SHOWS

08/20 – Spaceland – 2906 Sunset Blvd at the intersection of Sunset and Parkman Ave.
Cover – $8
Set time – 8:30, opening for The Atma 9:30pm, Venus Illuminato 10:30p, Olin and the Moon 11:30p

08/21 – The Knitting Factory – 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
Cover $10
Show starts at 7:30

We’re Goin Home

Be My Constant