That Song From The NBA Playoffs Commercial
UPDATE: I replaced the old poor-quality webrip with the actual mp3 from the album, which means no more of those irritating clicking noises in the background.
Here at Good Weather for Airstrikes, we have a thing for sports. Football always holds the number one spot in our hearts, but with no NFL season right now the NBA Playoffs are keeping us occupied. Our hometown Washington Wizards should have gotten over that road bump known as LeBron James’ Playoff Debut by now and are poised to make a run deep into the playoffs (until they have to play Miami. If you know ‘Zards basketball, you’ll know its been a looong time since we’ve beaten Miami. Over two years, in fact). However, as we were watching our Wizards being dismantled by LeBron’s triple-double, we couldn’t help but notice one NBA Playoffs commerical standing out, and no, it’s not the one with Fort Minor (more on that later: guilty pleasure alert!). The commercial is called “To Each His Own Ritual”, and advertises the beginning of the NBA Playoffs, airing on ESPN and ABC. Zack posted the commercial over on All Things Go, and we’ve done the same, right here:
If you read Zack’s post, it signs off with a plea for somebody to identify the wordless track that plays in the background. Well, Good Weather For Airstrikes (read: Everett) has come to the rescue, tracking down that elusive song, and, with the help of Derek’s computer-hacking skills, has made it available for download.
The band is Mountains In The Sky. Signed to Trifekta Records (Aussie home of The Decemberists & Deerhoof and the past label of The Avalanches, Architecture in Helsinki, and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), Mountains in the Sky is the creative outlet of Melbourne, Australia’s John Lee. His latest album, 2005’s Celestial Son, features the song that is being made famous through its use in the above commercial, “Noah’s Arkestra”. Trifekta says of the band: “Mountains In The Sky is music you half-hear in your dreams. It lifts musical elements from the everyday and constructs kaleidoscopic, intimate, cut’n'paste pastiches that are as elusively foreign as they are somewhat familiar…sonic bliss.” Hyperbole, perhaps, but the song in question is definitely worthy of that description. Vaguely reminiscent of RJD2, who’s excellent “Ghostwriter” has been used in past NBA commercials, Mountains In The Sky’s work also seems influenced by DJ Shadow, but slightly more energetic. The song itself works perfectly with the “To Each His Own Ritual” concept, which sees various NBA stars going through their superstitous pregame activities. The jittery track perfectly imagines the butterflies even the greatest of basketball players feel before taking the court in the playoffs, and I applaud the National Basketball Association and ESPN for selecting a song that is not only obscure, but perfect for the mood they are trying to set.
Unfortunately, at the moment the only mp3 of the song we have downloadable for you is not of the highest quality, as it is a webrip. Rest assured, it will still play fine on your computer or your iPod, but because our only option at the moment was to capture the streaming audio from the label’s website, the sound quality does leave something to be desired. We are working to get a better copy, but we couldn’t wait to share this song with you, so we’re offering it to you right here, as is.
MP3: “Noah’s Arkestra” - Mountains In The Sky [updated link]
To download the song, PC-users should right-click on the song link and select “Save Target As…”, and Mac users should CTRL-click and select “Download Linked File”.