Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This Drag City LP comes in a tip-on sleeve with a printed inner sleeve. Berman wrote every song, and Jarvis Taveniere and Jeremy Earl of Woods produced it in Chicago and Brooklyn.

This edition

Tip-on jacket
Printed inner sleeve
Lyrics included

About the album

David Berman spent the 1990s and 2000s writing some of the sharpest, funniest lines in American indie rock with Silver Jews, then stepped away from music altogether. In 2019 he came back with a new name, borrowed from his own blog, and an album that sounds like a man who has thought very hard about every word.

Jarvis Taveniere and Jeremy Earl of Woods built a warm, country-tinged band around him with an easy, rolling rhythm. "All My Happiness Is Gone" was the first single, "Darkness and Cold" and "Margaritas at the Mall" followed, and "I Loved Being My Mother's Son" is as tender a song as he ever wrote. The arrangements are bright and generous, which lets Berman's deadpan baritone and his wordplay do the heavy lifting.

It turned out to be his final album, and it's now treasured as one of the most moving records of its year. The name, for the record, comes from a well-loved mishearing of America the Beautiful, which is about as Berman a starting point as anyone could ask for.

Also at Kops: more Purple Mountains on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Side A
1. That's Just The Way That I Feel
2. All My Happiness Is Gone
3. Darkness And Cold
4. Snow Is Falling In Manhattan
5. Margaritas At The Mall

Side B
1. She's Making Friends, I'm Turning Stranger
2. I Loved Being My Mother's Son
3. Nights That Won't Happen
4. Storyline Fever
5. Maybe I'm The Only One For Me