“Magic Mountain” is a record that’s three years old. To Sophie Cartmell, aka Sad Cypress, it represented a time in her life that wasn’t easy by any means. When she pieced this record together, she was in university, struggling with her mental health and her relationships. That fragility makes itself aware in the music. And, as a consequence of that feeling, she felt under-confident about really putting herself out there. Now, three years later and having rekindled her spirit and gained the wings to really put herself out there as a musician deserving and acknowledging the talent she disposes, revisiting Magic Mountain made sense to her. If for nothing else, to honour the artist she once was who couldn’t do it herself at the time.
There’s an aching nature to most of these songs, a pained sense of being and a deep vulnerability that’s expressed with crystal clear sincerity and stripped back instrumentals that add to the evocativeness of the entire project. Songs like “Twilight Princess” are bereft of words themselves, just allowing Sad Cypress to paint the mood through her musicality alone. Her penmanship is at its strongest on the more upbeat and warm tunes like “To the One”, where you feel hope and positivity rain down on you.
The entire record mostly oscillates between dreamy hopefulness and moody melancholic overtones. It definitely evokes the state that Sophie found herself in when she wrote it, as many of us during Uni would feel almost exactly similarly. And, for that universal sense of relatability that Magic Mountain is able to express, there’s a certain poignance and point to this record that makes it a listen that’s well worth exploring when you’re feeling a tad bit wistful or melancholic.