Black Mountain ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

For me, large music festivals are great for two reasons: I see local favorites on gigantic stages and I get to discover new non-local bands I probably wouldn’t ever see outside of a festival setting. And as thrilling as it was to see The Head and The Heart on the main stage or watch Macklemore control a crowd of thousands, my favorite sets of Sasquatch this year came from three bands I’d never seen or heard before and whose records I came home and purchased immediately: Black Mountain, Cotton Jones and Other Lives.

BLACK MOUNTAIN – Vancouver, BC

Black Mountain ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

The Sasquatch band that had me asking, “where have you been my whole life?” answered politely, in Canadian clip. “Good afternoon Sasquatch,” they formally greeted the crowd, “we’re Black Mountain. We’re from Vancouver, that’s in B.C.” But lest you think this is another twang-tinged folk band (those come later), you’re wrong. Black Mountain is a classic stoner rock band, marrying powerful female vocals like Jefferson Airplane with Deep Purple through-a-Led-Zeppelin-lens groove. Though she stood meekly as her band-mates shredded on riffs as sharp and stoney as a knife hit, there’s nothing delicate or soft-spoken about Amber Webber’s singing and her powerhouse vocal performance left me mouth agape on the Sasquatch lawn. Had I been imbibing on fungus, as Black Mountain’s grooves all but beg your brain to do, you would not have been able to convince me we weren’t watching Grace Slick’s reincarnation wailing on 2011′s version of “White Rabbit.”

Powerful, but polite. Psychedelic without getting weird. Retro without sounding tired. Black Mountain’s sexy stoner grooves took me on a trip I’m not wholly certain was legal. Unlike the bad shit you picked up in the parking lot that one time, this is a trip you want to relive and thanks to NPR’s recording of their Sasquatch set, you can.

COTTON JONES – Cumberland, Maryland

Cotton Jones ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Cotton Jones was paired against Typhoon on a Sunday morning in a battle of bands I’ve been told I will adore, but that had never grabbed me. And Cotton Jones, playing to a small but appreciative crowd not much larger than the band Typhoon itself, won that fight so handily it felt like it might have been fixed. Cotton Jones might have had a small crowd, but they were fervent in their love, calling out requests and seeming to know every word. I sat on the hilly sidelines, watching as couples two-stepped and hippie slow-danced together to the band’s slow-burning, country soul. The crowd, much like the band’s sound itself, was an even mix of tie-dye and cowboy boots.

Cotton Jones writes songs for road trips with the windows down, rolling on dusty back roads. Hazy summer songs, new country soul classics and tie-dyed twang with a trombone. It should come as no surprise, Tall Hours In The Glowstream was the first record I picked up after I crossed the mountains.

Here’s the song I’ve had stuck in my head since their Sasquatch set:

Cotton Jones ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Cotton Jones ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

OTHER LIVES – Stillwater, Oklahoma

Other Lives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Other Lives is a band made of talented multi-instrumentalists. Five musicians held down at least 10 instruments from cello to trumpet in a soft set that featured moody ballads reminiscent of both Radiohead’s ghostly strings and the hymnal harmonies of the Fleet Foxes with a touch of Damien Jurado’s lyrical sinisterness. Their song “For 12′s” string introduction is so spot-on “How to Disappear Completely,” I thought for the first few moments it had to be a cover. But then the quiet gallop of hand drumming starts and the guitar riff takes a turn towards the cinematic American West. Other Lives paint wistful Western landscapes with their music, but despite sounding and looking like Seattle archetypes, they hail from Stillwater, Oklahoma. While a festival setting was a less than ideal introduction to Other Lives, this is music to be listened to in enclosed spaces like your headphones or in a small club in the shadows of dim stage lights, their brooding and beautiful songs managed in their quietness to rise above the antics of countless other Sasquatch acts and tamely steal my heart.

You can stream the band’s brand new album Tamer Animals below and after a listen I predict many of you, like me, will be running out to buy it.

Tamer Animals by Other Lives

Other Lives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Other Lives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Other Lives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons