Donivan Berube has seen his fair share of peaks and valleys throughout his young life and music career. It’s those experiences that help shape the tragic beauty found in his music. Best known for his work in the now defunct Blessed Feathers, Berube released his first official solo single in 2017 and two more stand alone singles early this year. Today we are happy to help share Donivan Berube’s latest single, “So Much for No Mountain” and the gorgeous corresponding video.
Berube’s backstory is usually mentioned in regards to conveying some context to the songwriter. At 17, he left home, disassociating with the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and thus leaving behind his family and friends. He then met Jacquelyn Beaupre in Wisconsin, at the time the women of dreams, traveling the continent together while living as nomads, and releasing music as the folk duo Blessed Feathers. The band had it’s successes -releasing a few albums with small labels, features on NPR, millions of streams, sharing the stage with the likes of Father John Misty, Youth Lagoon and more, and their final album, 2015’s There Will Be No Sad Tomorrow, was released exclusively on vinyl by the subscription service, Vinyl, Me Please, going out to their many subscribers. That’s no more though.
Now based in Flagstaff, Arizona, since the dissolution of Blessed Feathers, Berube has continued his travels while slowly processing it all and working on new music. Donivan has taught English in Peru, worked in Big Sur, biked across the country, and literally just got back from biking and hitchhiking around the perimeter of Iceland. There’s no doubt that all of these different experiences provide some form of inspiration one way or another.
“So Much for No Mountain” is Donivan Berube’s latest single. The first thing you immediately notice is the stunning saxophone and a somber pain within Berube’s voice. The guitar riffs balance out the song, at times still providing some hope through the rhythm, and other times playing further into the emotional pull, giving the hopeless romantic feel. “So Much for No Mountain” is a song that will have you ponder some of your life’s questions, and perhaps arriving at some of the same conclusions as Berube.
The video, directed by Jake Hoyungowa and edited by Christopher Antolak, features Kassandra Kraus in a dance performance on a lonely theater stage, complimenting the mood of the song. The synopsis for the video Berube provided sets the scene perfectly:
A grave study in futility amidst individualism, “So Much for No Mountain” presents the spirit of romance as a broken, post-Dharma Bums dystopia. Whereas Jack Kerouac’s 1958 Beat masterpiece is a contradictory road trip between seedy underground jazz bars and backpacking adventures, the story remains the same: There is only as much inspiration and dissatisfaction on either end of the spectrum. You long for one in the face of the other, with “escape” being merely an idea you have on the in-between.
Consider this an exorcism, not some On the Road orgy of zen friends and self-discovery, but more of a detuned pop song you only half-hear in the middle of the night, asleep at the wheel, dying to be home but losing sight of where you’re going. The road piles up with things that shape you, things you learn to live with, things you’re forever haunted by, but as far as you go, you’ll never outrun yourself. That’s the real lesson. All you can do is keep driving.
