Mountain Boy

When New Zealand-based songwriter Aaron Clarke was planning his first release he committed to producing a track a week for an entire year – just to get the hang of it. The hugely ambitious 52-song endeavour – dubbed "Project Sinai" – took him on a testing journey of creative self-discovery which helped refine and realign his musical ideas and direction. The end result saw the Melbourne-born, Hamilton-raised 25-year-old hone four big-sounding pop-folk tracks influenced by film scores and the great outdoors and realise his new identity as Mountain Boy for his debut EP From the Dust. "The idea came from the mantra of "10,000 hours", in terms of mastering a profession and the way you get good at something is by doing it," Clarke explained. "I was at a point in my life where I was feeling really stagnant. I'd just finished a music degree and didn't feel like I had learned a whole lot. And I w