Emma Donovan & The Putbacks released "Mountains of Wind and Rainbows" in September 2021 as part of the album Under These Streets, a collaborative project that brought together the solo artist with an ensemble of musicians: Simon Mavin, Mick Meagher, Tom Martin, Rory McDougall, and Justin Marshall. The track was produced by Henry Jenkins and distributed by Civilians, reaching over 41,000 views on YouTube since its release on the platform.
The Album and Its Imagery
The title Under These Streets carries a particular resonance—it speaks to hidden depths, to stories and experiences existing beneath the surface of urban life. When paired with the opening track "Mountains of Wind and Rainbows," the album establishes a poetic vocabulary that balances the earthbound with the transcendent. Mountains suggest solidity and permanence; wind and rainbows suggest impermanence, light, transformation. This duality—between what is grounded and what dissolves—becomes a thematic spine for the work.
The collaboration itself represents a kind of musical integration. Emma Donovan as the central voice, surrounded by an ensemble of contributors, creates a layered sound where individual voices and instruments weave together. This ensemble approach reflects the album's apparent interest in community, connection, and the collective stories that exist "under these streets"—the shared human experience that binds city dwellers, neighborhoods, and communities together.
Production and Craft
Henry Jenkins' production choices shape how these themes manifest sonically. The specific instrumental palette—shaped by Mavin, Meagher, Martin, McDougall, and Marshall's contributions—creates a textural landscape. Without access to detailed track breakdowns, what's clear from the release is that this was a deliberate collaborative effort, not a solo turn with session musicians, but a genuine ensemble recording where each voice holds compositional weight.
The decision to release through Civilians, an independent distributor, positioned the album outside major-label infrastructure—a choice that often reflects artistic autonomy and a direct relationship with listeners. The September 2021 release date placed Under These Streets in a moment when independent music was experiencing significant visibility through YouTube and streaming platforms, yet maintaining strong fan bases and community support.
The Track as Gateway
"Mountains of Wind and Rainbows" functions as an invocation—a piece designed to draw listeners into the album's emotional and philosophical territory. The title alone suggests visual and sensory experience: the solidity of mountains, the ephemeral movement of wind, the optical miracle of rainbows appearing only under specific atmospheric conditions. In that specificity lies something worth noting: rainbows require both light and water droplets at precise angles. They cannot be forced or manufactured. They arrive as gifts of circumstance. Mountains of wind and rainbows are thus mountains that exist in temporary, miraculous alignment—beauty contingent on conditions beyond human control.
For a listener encountering this track as an entry point to the album, the title primes a particular openness: expect imagery that moves between the monumental and the fleeting, between what can be touched and what can only be witnessed. This is the work of artists who understand how a single phrase can shape an audience's entire approach to what follows.
Where to go from here
Listen to Under These Streets as a complete work, allowing the ensemble arrangements and Emma Donovan's voice to create their own internal narrative. Pay attention to how "Mountains of Wind and Rainbows" establishes tone and expectation. Seek out the individual musicians' contributions—Simon Mavin, Mick Meagher, Tom Martin, Rory McDougall, and Justin Marshall—to understand the ensemble's sonic architecture. If you find resonance in this release, explore Emma Donovan's other work and the broader conversations around collaborative, community-centered music-making in contemporary practice.
