Mercury Rev is an American indie rock group that formed in 1989 in Buffalo, New York. A band committed to experimentation and reinvention, their music has run the gambit from neo-psych and noise rock, lush pastoralism, and 4/4 electronica. In 1998 Mercury Rev delivered the unexpected, a hit album. Deserter’s Songs, the fourth studio long player from the New York-based band not only delivered three UK Top 40 singles, but also struck cultural pay dirt across the globe that still resonates today.
Fully cementing Mercury Rev’s rebirth as purveyors of a cosmic brand of the popular American songbook, Deserter’s Songs is an album of grandiose proportions. Merging jazz, folk, sweeping orchestration, and a dose of 60’s rock, the album was intended as the band’s swan song and therefore made with utter abandon. However, it became the band’s most acclaimed platter and remains one of the essential records of the past 25 years. Deserter’s Songs was released to huge worldwide acclaim and went on to be named album of the year in 1998 by NME, MOJO and many other publications, quickly propelling the legendary iconoclasts into living rooms worldwide and pioneered the launch of a new genre of music, heard today in bands like Arcade Fire and Beirut. Originally released on V2 Records, Deserter’s Songs was chosen as the first release on our new imprint, Modern Classics Recordings. Modern Classics’ Deserter’s Songs is the first LP reissue of this landmark album, long overdue if you ask us. Beautiful audio re-master comes courtesy of co-producer and original Mercury Rev member David Fridmann
Deserter’s Songs is at once a lullaby, a trip, and a triumph.”
-9.3/10 – Pitchfork (Top 100 Albums of the 1990’s)
Mercury Rev have announced the release of Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited, available 8th February via Bella Union. The album is a reimagining of Bobbie Gentry’s forgotten masterpiece and features an incredible cast list of guest vocalists including Norah Jones, Hope Sandoval, Beth Orton, Lucinda Williams, Rachel Goswell,Vashti Bunyan, Marissa Nadler, Susanne Sundfør, Phoebe Bridgers, Margo Price, Kaela Sinclair, Carice Van Houten and Laetitia Sadier. Mercury Rev have today shared the track “Sermon”, featuring Margo Price on vocals.
Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited is Mercury Rev’s committed and affectionate resurrection of an album that anticipated by three decades their own pivotal expedition through transcendental America, 1998’s Deserter’s Songs. From their recording lair in New York’s Catskill Mountains, the founding core of Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper with Jesse Chandler (previously in the Texas group Midlake) honour Gentry’s creative triumph with spacious invention and hallucinatory flair. And they are not alone. Gentry’s stories and original resolve are brought to new vocal life and empowerment by a vocal cast of women from across modern rock and its alternative paths: among them, Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval; Laetitia Sadier, formerly of Stereolab; Marissa Nadler; Margo Price, the fiery new country star with a punk-rock heart; and Norway’s Susanne Sundfør, who cuts through “Tobacco Road” with arctic-Nico poise as the Rev’s trademark technicolor orchestration sweeps us towards the penultimate poignant love lorn wash of Beth Orton’s “Courtyard” and into the melancholy mystery of “Ode to Billie Joe” from America’s other grand southern belle Lucinda Williams.
On the 1968 LP, Gentry opened with a call to jubilant order, “Okolona River Bottom Band,” like she was leading a barn-dance union of the Rolling Stones and Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five. Norah Jones takes that entrance here with her own sultry command, like Sarah Vaughan at the head of a slow-blooming choir. In “Sermon,” Margo Price sings like a survivor through Mercury Rev’s explosion of colour and groove: a specialty throughout the band’s history as recently as 2015’s The Light in You going back through 1995’s See You on the Other Side.
Gentry is still very present in the changes. Her seesaw of pride and hurt in the melancholy blur of “Penduli Pendulum” is even more explicit with the seasoned intimacy of Vashti Bunyan set against the younger, brighter arc of Kaela Sinclair, now in the electronic project M83. And in “Courtyard,” a despairing finale of strings and guitar arpeggios on Gentry’s LP, Mercury Rev build a striking Delta Krautrock in which the English singer Beth Orton wanders, like Gentry, through a ruin of profound loss and treasured memory.
“Ode to Billie Joe” was not on the ‘68 Delta Sweete. But Mercury Rev go back to that dinner table with Lucinda Williams, and it is an inspired bond, calling up the ghosts and questions of a South still very much with us. Indeed, Gentry—who retired from recording and performing in the Seventies—reportedly lives only a couple hours’ drive from the bridge that made her famous, while the spirits she set loose in The Delta Sweete are as restless and compelling as they were 50 years ago.
Mercury Rev will on tour in the UK next month celebrating the 20th anniversary of their classic album Deserter’s Songs. Full Dates here.
Mercury Rev have announced the release of Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited, available 8th February 2019 via Bella Union.
I have little or no knowledge of the intricacies and tradition of swiftly picked 12-string folk music of the type played by Jim Ghedi and Toby Hay on The Hawksworth Grove Sessions. It’s a music that arrives in my ears via Laura Cannell’s recommendation over at our friends Caught By The River, rather than PR or record label machinations – and what a blessed relief it is. Masterful, intricate playing is actually often the sort of thing I can find myself reacting against – too earnest, too technically accomplished, too lacking in the cracks of ability through which the madness of inspiration might pour – but this 10-track album is an absolute delight and a balm for saturated times. Ghedi and Hay apparently composed the pieces while touring together, inspired by the landscapes in which they spend their daily lives. Their dexterity on the strings creates a sonic density that touches the psychedelic; it conjures an uncanny human presence, as if they’ve snared old ghosts and forgotten voices, and given them new life
Magnetic Eye Records‘ exhaustive undertaking to re-envision Pink Floyd’s concept masterpiece THE WALL in its entirety from end to end in sequence, featuring some of the most iconic artists in heavy music today alongside some of the most exciting newcomers. I love the concept of these Redux albums, and the execution is amazing!
Comfortably Numb, but damn this was worth the wait. Absolutely delightful from side A to D. You can tell the amount of respect each artist has for the original material. It’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of Pink Floyd’s 1979 canonical album The Wall, and countless artists since have taken liberties with their own versions of the record’s songs. Sludge doom’s favorite prolific weirdos the Melvins have joined this lineage with a very special re-imagining of the album’s opener, which will appear on the compilation The Wall (Redux),
Incorporating into the experimental nature of the original their own brand of tone-in-cheek peculiarity, Buzzo and the gang have out-stranged Pink Floyd with campier organ tones and their signature gut-rumbling guitar fuzz. The cover’s warped tonality make the creep-out antics of the sweetly sung lyrics play out like an unsettling love story.
A good rule usually of thumb for covers is don’t do them unless you are either 1) completely revamping the song and giving it a different feel and sound, or 2) improving on the original. Pallbearer has definitely achieved No. 1, and only time will tell if Pallbearer have done No. 2, but we’ll be damned if they aren’t pretty close.
The Arkansas crew have taken on the Pink Floyd favorite “Run Like Hell,” one of the highlights of 1979’sThe Wall, and given it their own riffy feel, bringing the classic-rock staple into the now. Instead of David Gilmour’s simple reverb-heavy guitar lick, the melodic-doom quartet opts for a chugging, churning approach, leaning heavily on the gallop that exists in the original and bringing it to the forefront. And don’t worry, there are plenty of Pallbearer-isms to spare, from the soaring guitars to the masterful vocals. Pallbearer’s “Run Like Hell” cover is part of a Pink Floyd The Wall tribute album by Magnetic Eye called “THE WALL [REDUX]”, a stoner/doom-leaning compilation of tracks that match that of the iconic LP. Joining Pallbearer are names that range from the Melvins to Mark Lanegan to Ruby the Hatchet, each taking one of the album’s classic cuts.
The Wall (Redux)sees each track of the album recreated by a contemporary heavy artist, from newcomer cult rockers Church of the Cosmic Skull taking on “The Trial,” to established Gen X rocker Mark Lanegan lending his signature rough-edged vocals to “Nobody’s Home.” “I am a fan of early Pink Floyd and late period Floyd but was never really into the really famous records in between,” Lanegan says in response to a question about his own appreciation of the band. “Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets and More were my jams. And in the late ’80s I enjoyed A Momentary Lapse in Reason and even The Division Bell from ’94. “But honestly it’s the two Syd Barrett solo records that to me are true genius, and if I were going to listen to any Floyd-related tunes that would be it. The Wall is a work of undeniable greatness, an unparalleled work of art. There are so many fantastic songs that it’s practically a greatest hits record. But I’ll be damned if I know what its contemporary relevance is.
Check out the full track listing below.
Tracklist:
Side A
1. In the Flesh? – The Melvins
2. The Thin Ice – Low Flying Hawks
3. Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1 – Ghastly Sound
4. Happiest Days of Our Lives – Sergeant Thunderhoof
5. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 – Sasquatch
6. Mother – ASG
Side B
1. Goodbye Blue Sky – Mos Generator
2. Empty Spaces – Domkraft
3. Young Lust – The Slim Kings
4. One of My Turns – Worshipper
5. Don’t Leave Me Now – Spaceslug
6. When the Tigers Broke Free – Year of the Cobra
7. Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3 / Goodbye Cruel World – Greenleaf
Side C
1. Hey You – Summoner
2. Is There Anybody Out There? – Scott Reeder
3. Nobody Home – Mark Lanegan
4. Vera – Ruby the Hatchet
5. Bring the Boys Back Home – Sunflo’er
6. Comfortably Numb – Mars Red Sky
Side D
1. The Show Must Go On – Open Hand
2. In the Flesh – Solace
3. Run Like Hell – Pallbearer
4. Waiting for the Worms – WhiteNails
5. Stop – Blue Heron
6. The Trial – Church of The Cosmic Skull
7. Outside the Wall – Yawning Man
The woodwose have left the woods. They find themselves in the tree-lined cul-de-sacs of the suburbs that surround the concrete forest of the citadel. Amongst the trees here, are wooden posts with “For Sale” and “To Let” written in bold type. A new forest. Promises, promises.
They glimpse the sportswear-clad inhabitants busying themselves in their quest for physical and mental fitness, only to obliterate their senses at every opportunity. ‘Drink and Glide’ into this fast-paced living: the once revolutionary 1960s counter-cultural ideals now co-opted into lifestyle classes to enhance one’s sense of “betterness”.‘Drink and Glide’ now in preparation for Snaps II early next year.
Formed of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald “DJ” Johnson on drums; Khruangbin’s sounds are rooted in the deepest waters of world music infused with classic soul, dub and psychedelia. Their 2015 debut album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ was heavily influenced by 60’s and 70’s Thai cassettes the band listened to on their long car journeys to rehearsal in the Texan countryside. ‘Con Todo El Mundo’ takes inspiration not just from South East Asia but similarly underdiscovered funk and soul of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, particularly Iran.
‘Con Todo El Mundo’ is in part dedicated to Laura Lee’s Mexican-American grandfather, a formative influence on the bassist. She says, “My grandpa would always ask me ‘Cómo me quieres?’ (how much do you love me?) And he’d only ever accept one response: ‘Con todo el mundo’ (with all the world). He created his own world to live in. Khruangbin is the world we’ve created.”
Though outwardly unassuming (but no less stylish), the trio’s diverse backgrounds aligned with a shared worldview and passion are at the heart of what makes Khruangbin tick. Their desire in representing international culture is notable given the climate and agenda in certain areas of the US. In some respects it’s throwing back a compliment by reinterpreting artists of other countries reinterpretations of US-based music, which again drew influence from the world. Throughout ‘Con Todo El Mundo’; Laura Lee’s melodic low-end theory, Mark’s lyrical, free-role guitar lines, and DJ’s ever-steady, ever-ready backbeat form something greater than their parts. A statement that crosses languages, ages, cultures and borders.
Opener ‘Cómo Me Quieres’ sets the tone with its exotic, spacious, slow-motion funk while in antithesis the album’s first single ‘Maria También’ is filled with urgency and attitude. ‘August 10’ is a classic Khruangbin track, infused with their signature bass-heavy sound, while also introducing new elements to their chemistry. There’s time for solid disco-funk in the form of ‘Evan Finds The Third Room’ and the band even finds space to nod to P-Funk with a chant towards the end of the evolving jam ‘Lady and Man’. Closing the album, ‘Friday Morning’ – “a song about jumping into love” – skips between laid back Isley Brothers-esque vibes via delicate tempo changes into gentle hymnal passages.
Since the release of ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’, Khruangbin have spent the past two years playing non-stop worldwide. From a European tour with Father John Misty to supporting Maribou State at Koko, a string of festival dates at Glastonbury, SXSW, Dimensions, Gottwood, Love International, The Great Escape, The Downs with Massive Attack, a joint US tour with Chicano Batman and extended headline excursions; Songkick estimates Khruangbin played around 100 gigs in the past year. The band count it at a fair few more. As a nod to their travels, Laura and Mark have been presenting a weekly “AirKhruang” DJ set live each Friday on their Facebook page, where the pair play a selection of music by artists from a particular city.
The trio continue to play live around the world throughout 2018 starting with a UK tour to follow the album release. A vibe-synchronous soul-unit travelling the planet, honing their craft, absorbing the sights, sounds and feels from cultures across the globe, processing them through the Khruangbin filter and gifting the result back…with all the world.
The bewitching Argentine singer, songwriter is known for her distinctive experimental pop sound
Juana’s music flows from her acoustic guitar – off-kilter electronic sounds and rhythms and a vast, strangely comforting plethora of noises from flora and fauna – while her voice is soothing and mesmeric. Segundo, Juana’s wonderful second album, is bubbling with joy underpinned by gentle grace.
On The Lillywhite Sessions, Ryley Walker and the similarly indebted trio of drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Andrew Scott Young cover Dave Matthews’ infamously abandoned 2001 art-rock masterpiece of the same name, a record where he and his band indulged a new adult pathos and a budding musical wanderlust. With a delicate rhythmic latticework and vocals that ask you to lean in, Busted Stuff recalls Jim O’ Rourke’s golden Drag City days. Emerging from a wall of distortion, Diggin’ a Ditch becomes a power trio wallop à la Dinosaur Jr, shaking off existential malaise like twenty- something pals writing rock songs in the garage. Walker’s Grace is Gone, the most faithful take here, is a testament to his unflagging love for the music that helped make him a musician.
This end-to-end interpretation of youthful fascination is a collective reminder that we are all just kids from somewhere, reckoning with our upbringing the best we can. Walker has stepped through the door long ago opened by the Dave Matthews Band to find a world teeming with musical possibilities. On The Lillywhite Sessions, he has, in turn, created his own.
Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore’s collective work as solo artists, band members, and collaborators—could fill a small record collection. Despite this productivity, these two long-time friends have never recorded an entire album focused exclusively on their unique talents. “Ghost Forests” mysteriously, thrillingly fills that void.
Independently, Baird and Lattimore have each cultivated highly individual and idiosyncratic tools of expression. Baird’s timeless and soaring voice, guitar, and drums have underpinned pastoral and folk rock explorations as a soloist and in band settings with Espers and Heron Oblivion. Lattimore’s albums of enigmatic, spectral experimental harp sounds move and unfold like films and nature itself. The list of artists that have called upon their voices, talents, and visions to enrich their own work is expansive—a virtual pocket encyclopedia of contemporary indie and experimental musicians.
Over the course of “Ghost Forests”’ six collaborative compositions we hear deeply sympathetic conversations between the two artists. With access to a deep pool of shared influences, these two friends assembled a collection of sounds conjured from harp, guitar (both acoustic and electric), synths, the human voice, and a shared poetic language. Baird and Lattimore’s subjects range from the sound of light on water, seismic geopolitical anxiety, the smog-exploded sunsets of Don Dudley’s paintings, and vertigo from their respective relocations to San Francisco and Los Angeles from their once-shared home in Philadelphia.
The synthesis of their vision welcomes listeners who might have been familiar with only one of the performer’s solo oeuvres. It also speaks to long-time fans both artists who have long wondered what this dream collaboration might yield.
Steve Gunn has long known Baird and Lattimore and worked with both on his own albums. He says “Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore are two musicians that I greatly admire. ‘Ghost Forests’ is an ace meld of their abilities; Meg’s guitar and voice, and Mary’s harp lead each other (and us) into further regions of the strata. With each song you can hear this remarkable kinship. I’m thankful for this soundtrack.”
“Ghost Forests”’ musical conversations are intimate, fluid, effortless and spontaneous. They’re filled with the euphoria of creation and, at times, they articulate hard truths and tangled emotions with an ease only trusted friends can manage. The songs alternate between extended ethereal instrumental excursions, gauzy and dreamy pop, blown-out “Bull of the Woods” heavy haze, and modern reimaginations of epic traditional balladry—all while touching on the strange and otherworldly places between these stations.
With “Ghost Forests” Baird and Lattimore have given us all a timeless gift that generously rewards immersion and deep investigation. It is our collective good fortune as listeners that we are able to eavesdrop on their conversation through these songs. It is also a wonder to hear two unique artists interact to such beautifully original ends.
Releases November 9th, 2018
Recorded January 2018 in Los Angeles, CA.
“Ghost Forests” is the first full collaborative album from Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore. It was recorded in January 2018 in Los Angeles with Thom Monaghan. It will be packaged within a jewel case including artwork by Jeff Root and a 4 panel insert. It was mastered by Patrick Klem. “Ghost Forests” will be released on November 9th, 2018.
Girlpool have shared “Hire,” their first single off their newly announced forthcoming album What Chaos Is Imaginary, due out February. 1st, 2019, on ANTI- Records.
“Hire” follows the pair of songs Girlpool released earlier this year, “Lucy’s” and “Where You Sink.” While “Hire” is a more rollicking ride, it shares a tenderness with those previous releases. The central revelation of all of these songs is co-vocalist Cleo Tucker’s voice—Tucker transitioned after the band’s last album, and their voice is now a hearty, wounded baritone. The band’s signature harmonies feel weightier, Tucker’s vocals landing with heft while Harmony Tividad’s ethereal coos swirl overhead.
“Hire” finds Tucker maxing out their dynamic range, slowly raising the stakes from hop-along valleys of groove to scorching peaks of winding screams. The possibilities raised by the band’s new vocal dynamics are far-reaching, and “Hire” is a bracing proof of concept.
Listen to “Hire” The band will be touring with Hatchie in 2019
