Sun Kil Moon is the current project of singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, best known for his previous band, Red House Painters. Sun Kil Moon sees Kozelek undertake all the writing, composing, singing and guitar playing accompanied by Tim Mooney and Anthony...Sun Kil Moon is the current project of singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, best known for his previous band, Red House Painters. Sun Kil Moon sees Kozelek undertake all the writing, composing, singing and guitar playing accompanied by Tim Mooney and Anthony Koutsos on drums, and Geoff Stanfield on bass. The band is named after Korean bantamweight boxer Moon Sung-Kil. [1] [2] With Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek continues to plough his own singular furrow of folk-tinged alternative rock, nostalgic, autobiographical lyrics and distinctive cover versions.
Their debut album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, was written entirely by Kozelek (except "Somewhere" written by Leonard Bernstein), and released by Jetset Records in 2003. It is an album centered around the theme of memory, connecting Kozelek's haunting memories with the true-life stories of deceased boxers, such as featherweight champion Salvador Sanchez and flyweight Pancho Villa. Kozelek's music with Sun Kil Moon spans genres such as the simple acoustic country-folk of "Glenn Tipton" to the heavy, Crazy Horse-esque rock of "Salvador Sanchez" and the light-hearted "Lily And Parrots," onto the fourteen minute psychedelic tour de force, "Duk Koo Kim" (another homage to a deceased boxer) and the beautiful and haunting "Gentle Moon" and "Carry Me Ohio." Kozelek's voice is now more flexible and less downcast than in his work with Red House Painters, resulting in a resonant and often beautiful album. Ghosts of the Great Highway was re-issued as a double CD on February 6, 2007 on Kozelek's own label, Caldo Verde. The second disc features six bonus tracks.
The band's follow-up Tiny Cities was released on November 1, 2005, on Caldo Verde Records. The album covers eleven songs by the indie/alternative group Modest Mouse and, in its sparse production and spare instrumentation, is more or less a solo work. Kozelek takes the often frenetic, noisy songs of Modest Mouse and transforms them into haunting, acoustic guitar-dominated midtempo ballads filled with a deep-seated melancholy.
Sun Kil Moon's third studio album is called April and will be released April 1, 2008. [3] It features guest vocals from Will Oldham.
