The last time we heard from Buffalo psychedelic rock legends Mercury Rev was 2019. That’s when they released Bobbie Gentry’s Delta Sweete Revisited, a full-length tribute to the great country-folk singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry that had a bunch of contributions from famous friends. Mercury Rev haven’t released an album of new material in nine long years, but that’s about to change. This summer, they’ll follow 2015’s The Light In You with the brand new LP Born Horses.
Born Horses features longtime Mercury Rev leaders Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper along with Midlake pianist Jesse Chandler and Austrian keyboardist Marion Genser. They cite minimalist composer Tony Conrad and beat poet Robert Creeley as inspirations, and lead single “Patterns” combines mind-blown spoken-word with epic, swirling oscillations of guitar and keyboard. Here’s what Grasshopper says about it:
When Jonathan and I first met, one thing we bonded over was Blade Runner, both Ridley Scott’s film and Vangelis’ soundtrack: that feel of the past and the future, the haunting noir mood and the romance of the future… Born Horses taps into some of that. Looking back to childhood, to Broadway tunes, to lonesome blues, Chet Baker, Miles Davis’ Sketches Of Spain, records that our parents listened to, but we put a twist into the future. From the beginning, Mercury Rev were on a cusp, between analogue and digital, hi-fi and lo-fi at the same time. It was like Brecht or Weill, the words suggesting visuals, and the visuals suggesting moods. We also thought a lot about the desert on this record, and the urban desert.
Below, check out “Patterns” and the Born Horses tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Mood Swings”
02 “Ancient Love”
03 “Your Hammer, My Heart”
04 “Patterns”
05 “A Bird Of No Address”
06 “Born Horses”
07 “Everything I Thought I Had Lost”
08 “There’s Always Been A Bird In Me”
Born Horses is out 9/6 on Bella Union.
