Five Baltimore residents came together in 2005 to form The Lexie Mountain Boys and yes indeed they are all women.
“Sacred Vacation” is the result of three years of performances, events and tours in the US and Canada. Recorded in the sanctuary of St John’s Church in Baltimore, MD by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, “Sacred Vacation” is a document of years of unique vocal practice and fierce sisterhood. No overdubs were used, nor were any added effects on the vocals used beyond the glorious natural reverb of the sanctuary.
In the live performance arena, Mountain Boys offer something rarely seen — a fearless, sprawling energy to complement their bold and unusual vocal stylings. Dancing, marching, spinning, running, jumping, laughing, tangling, engaging the moment fully via costume and song, Mountain Boys shows are not to be missed. From a mythic rock opera titled “Woodgrain Manicure” to “Petals the Party Dress”, a twelve-person dress sculpture cum maypole, from dueling, chanting human pyramids to golden balls and Southern Belles, Mountain Boys performances playfully transgress gender roles and social boundaries.
Lexie Mountain Boys sublimate a wide array of vocal and non-vocal influences – doo-wop, Baltimore Club, modern experimental anti-traditions, radio pop divadom, vaudeville – into a completely new beast. The Mountain Boys are a singing group, and the term a cappella is both accurate and also somehow limiting in describing the sort of scope “Sacred Vacation” assumes. “Sacred Vacation” is music of the soul, the pure immediate nowness of tight homies, loose sounds, and the harmonics of freedom.
