Ottawa’s art rock band The Acorn have themselves a hell of a solid sophomore album with Glory Hope Mountain (Paper Bag Records). An homage to the life story of Gloria Montoya Esperanza, band leader Rolf Klausener’s mom, the group did research on Smithsonian recordings of 50’s Honduran Folk Music and West Indian rhythms and based songs on the hope and tragedy in Montoya’s native Honduras.
Here are two mp3s to check out:
The Acorn : “The Flood Pt.1″ (mp3)
The Acorn: “Crooked Legs” (mp3)
As one listens to tracks like “The Flood Pt.1,” you can easily make out the Honduran Folk undertones but they don’t overpower the song’s indie pop greatness. It truly is one of my favorite pop tracks right now.
As for “Crooked Legs” story, it’s culled from an incident when Montoya was 12 and living on her father’s farm in Honduras with her 14-year-old adopted brother, Napoleon. Check out Rolf’s description of what transpired from his interview with Exclaim!:
“Every night her father would get people to go out and tend to the sugar cane, because there was a refinery on the farm. When her brother was of age, her father asked him to go watch over the people working at the sugar refinery. Napoleon was terrified of the dark and refused to do it. He had polio and had a bum leg, and he had to ride a horse to do this…The father was insistent. He took off his belt, which was sweaty and hot because it was a sweltering night, and whipped Napoleon, who wasn’t wearing a shirt. The belt wrapped around Napoleon’s waist. When the father ripped off the belt, it tore an entire chunk of skin from around the torso. It was bleeding like crazy. So my mother, 12 years old, runs to the shed and gets a machete. She runs at her father with a machete and climbs up him as if she’s going to slit his throat. She tells him, ‘If you touch him, I will kill you.’ “Things calmed down after a bit, and Napoleon went to bed with bandages around his stomach. Later that night, my mother broke into the farm’s safe and took all of her father’s money. She packed it all up and got on this dirt road and walked tens of kilometres, until dawn, to Tegucigalpa…”
 The Acorn play First Avenue’s 7th Street Entry on April, 26, 2008 with Little Sister.
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