Sports Coach is the project of Thatcher May, an artist from Boston who began releasing music back in 2014. After pausing releases, he re-emerged in 2024, and now, on September 30th, he’s set to release On the Mountain Above the Cloud, an 18-track record that invites you to face difficult questions within hypnotic landscapes.
From the very beginning, May sets the tone with “Dreamer.” It’s soft and meditative, a moment where you can almost feel your worries loosen their grip. The lyric “I watch the clouds go by,” coupled with the transient environment, places the listener in a distant facet of the mind, letting everything intentionally slip away. Sonically, the layered textures and calm rhythm magnify the trance, bending time and gently forcing perception to bleed. Who doesn’t love a sweet escape… ‘
The second track, “Above the Cloud,” shifts the pace. Rhythm begins to pulse, creating a sensation of ascension. It’s steady and hypnotic, but it carries a tension when the lyrics reflect a numbing ache of being “picked up and put down.” Even in its momentum, the song recognizes instability. Across the album, May moves fluidly between confession and abstraction. At its most human, the record immerses into the mind, wrestling with old versions of the self (“Past Self”), disappearing into isolation (“Hideaway”), or living on “Borrowed Time.” Others expand outward into an almost cosmic scale, asking questions about meaning (“Cosmic Reason”). While the sound design shifts in rhythmic intensity, it remains bound by a common thread, electronic textures and synth coloring, which makes the record feel intimate while enhancing its meditative aura.
The record isn’t without moments of knowing that surface amid the self-questioning. “Beau in the Cherry Blossoms” feels like a whisper from the back of your mind, a reminder that the promise of not letting someone down can keep you tethered when everything else feels adrift. By the time the closer “Another One For Will” fades, it’s clear that this was never about reaching a destination, something I quickly realized during my first listen. Instead, the record shows you that the point is in the wandering, in the confusion, and the faint revelations. It’s an album about the art of noticing. Noticing that even in uncertainty, there’s an experience. So, give it the time and space it needs with every listen. Each time, allow it to carry you into those difficult questions and uncertain moments of life. On the Mountain Above the Cloud doesn’t hand you answers but offers an invitation to ride the wave.
You’ll be able to experience the full scope of this record, alongside our friends .Com, Cactus Ponchos, and Shindigs live at The Goldfish on Saturday, October 4th!
