The Victor Mourning
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The Victor Mourning

Austin, Texas, United States | SELF

Austin, Texas, United States | SELF
Band Americana Acoustic

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"The Victor Mourning Live - Charleston, WV"

The Austin, TX based trio kept the audience captive for a solid two hours with a delicate yet rugged blend of fiddle, banjo, guitar, and vocal harmonies.
The somberly dressed group sported a refreshingly unique sound. Far removed from the upbeat, shit-kickin’ quality that often pervades Appalachian folk music, these tunes were mournful (hence the name), pensive, and decidedly introspective. Basic but haunting chord structures were augmented by solid banjo lines, sprinkled with the occasional counterpoint, and soulful, melodic fiddle leads. Brittle, gorgeous vocal harmonies rode not on top of but in midstream with the rest of the sound.
In between songs, the group was jovial and gregarious, perhaps a necessary antidote to their western gothic garb and sorrowful tunes. The group’s leader, guitarist/vocalist Stephen Lee Canner, was especially charismatic, winning over the audience with anecdotes and easy conversation. And such is the atmosphere of Taylor Books that permits such effortless intimacy betwixt performer and audience.
Canner’s voice truly was the lodestone of the band, morphing effortlessly from his speaking voice—which was curiously unaffected—to his singing voice, a heavily accented, wavering, warbling beauty that, like a prized steed, would transport one, with great dispatch, anywhere one wished to go.
- Kanawha Valley Live


"25 Reasons We Love Austin"

http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-srv/gallery/0902_Austin/index.html?jumpToPic=4 - Budget Travel Magazine


"Nuvo - Indianapolis"

"The Victor Mourning...mines the South for stories about murder by death, confidence betrayed..." - Nuvo


"Roctober"

"This rootsy, old timey story music (I didn't say hillbilly) is so good it gave me Mourning wood."

- Waymon Timbsdale
- Roctober Magazine - Sep 12, 2009


"MazzMusikaS"

"There are all in all four brilliant songs on this EP (Fire Fire Demos) that absolutely make you crave more. "
- Ben Vanhoegaerden - MazzMusikaS (Belgium) -Mar 23, 2009


"Americana UK"

"'This House Is Filled With Sickness' has a truly atavistic quality, capturing the character of an authentic folk song."
- Kai Roberts - Americana UK - Apr 01, 2009


"Rootsville"

Great debut!"
- Francois "Swa" Braeken, - Rootsville (Belgium) - Feb 14, 2009


"Austin Chronicle review - A Handful of Locusts"

The Victor Mourning consciously steeps its aesthetic in a bygone era, exhumed in fiddle, guitar reels, and haunted folk ballads and conjured by the sepia-toned locust artwork prophesying plagues. Despite the harrowing starkness of biblical brimstone and Southern Gothic outcasts that shade the local trio's debut LP, the veteran prowess of the folklorists and production from Erik Wofford give the songs an expert contemporary polish that bridges the centuries. Stephen Lee Canner's vocals crawl with an eerie Appalachian twang, and from the opening Icarus reworking of "Zachariah" to the tortured domestic madness and "Omie Wise" allusion of "This House Is Filled With Sickness," his songwriting rakes through the heritage of rural apocrypha and apocalypse with death and the bottle ever at hand. Tim Kerr contributes button accordion to the desperate shanty of "Patagonie," but Jad Fair's vocals on closer "Grasshoppers" quake with the ultimate rumination of wrack and ruin. - Austin Chronicle


"Altcountry NL (Netherlands) review - A Handful of Locusts"

"Folk art in music" - Altcountry NL


Discography

Fire Fire Demos (EP, Backwoods Modern Recordings, 2008)

A Handful of Locusts (Backwoods Modern Recordings, 2010)

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Bio

The Victor Mourning perform acoustic anachronisms from another century that are firmly rooted in this one - sometimes raucous, sometimes quiet, mostly dark, and very southern. Thought provoking, starkly haunting songs tell tales of grief-torn outcasts, confidences betrayed, piracy, and murder. There's a song about a man who eats nothing but locusts and Campbell's soup, another about a traveling albino, and an unexpected version of the ancient Greek myth of Icarus set in the hills of rural Arkansas. With classic storytelling, soaring harmonies, and melodic fiddle, the band creates music with an old time feel filtered through a modern sensibility, at once both relevant and true to its ancient roots.