‘Catalyst Sessions’ recap: Mountain Holler

One of the bay area’s most unique performers, Mark Etherington is a singer, songwriter and guitarist who combines all three disciplines into an atmospheric dreamscape, thick with applied reverb, sounds that bear little to no resemblance to the strumming and/or tuneful picking of your average folkie.

His stage name is Mountain Holler, and for all the serious intent and inspiration of his haunting and compelling music, he admitted on Monday’s edition of The Catalyst Sessions that the moniker has no deep-seated meaning for him. Rather, Etherington explained, it came from a bottle of knockoff green soda – one discount chain’s “version” of highly caffeinated Mountain Dew.

Humor aside, the interview went deep into the origins of the Connecticut native’s penchant for open-guitar tunings and the origins of his echo-drenched performance style.

Etherington performed a new song, “Riot Line,” inspired by the recent Black Lives Matter protests, and “Raise the Skyway,” which he wrote and recorded for last year’s Tampa-made documentary The Skyway Bridge Disaster.

Today on The Catalyst Sessions: Local actress and aerialist Katrina Stevenson.

Streaming weekdays at 7 p.m. on the Catalyst Facebook page. All episodes are archived on our YouTube page.