Prophet
We Had No Model
Prophet Mountains is a guitar-synth/drums duo composed of Philippe Monthaye and Florence Villeminot. The list of their cumulative musical influences looks like this: Philip Glass, Moondog, Laurie Anderson, Robert Wyatt, the Kinks, the Boo Radleys, Violent Femmes, Nick Cave, Funkadelic, My Bloody Valentine, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Barbara Lewis, ... Prophet comes from the Hebrew word Nabi. A word which is also the name of a pictorial movement which recommends not forbidding anything, especially not ambition. Mountains is the setting where she and he grew up. Florence and Philippe have known each other for ten years but previously grew up in the Appalachians and the Austrian Alps respectively. Both coming from nowhere, these nomads without an anchor point have no reassuring model. We Had No Model, the title of the record, is more than a slogan, it is a rallying cry to those uprooted from life, who are looking for their place in the changing mess that is the 660, nourished .e.s of a sad and saving anger. Without a model, without knowing where we are going, uncertainty is liberating rather than a source of despair. This is why this album, recorded without electric guitar or drum machine, is more luminous and warm than their first EP, which was dark, threatening, metallic. We Had No Model was produced with the help of: Olivier Marguerit, Victor Le Masne, Judah Warsky and Marielle Martin.