Old Mercury Rev or new?

Yep

So yeah, you had to be there. I heard it right when it came out and loved it, and really have no desire to listen to it ever again. (This said "Goddess on a Hi-Way"'s line about 'we explode like two bugs on glass' is an all time winner.)

Yeah I'm curious about all the Flaming Lips comparisons. Ive listened to Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi and I can kinda hear it I guess.

The Flaming Lips connection never held water for me. If anything, new Mercury Rev sound like Supertramp filler tracks.

I have deserters songs and I never listen to it, did they just keep heading off into noodly oblivion?

the connection is jonathan donahue and david fridmann

I was about to say, there's a pretty huge connection, actually! That said Elvis's point re: Supertramp is spot on.

if there's one thing i can't stand--it's up

up up up up up up

genius

a rare example of lyrics, song-title and album-cover working together to complete a (beautifully warped) psychological jigsaw puzzle

Although they pushed it much further out live, which is probably tainting my memories of it. Live it was v. v. good

otm. when i saw them in the summer of 1999 i was completely obsessed with deserters songs. when they played "tonite it shows" live it took me a good verse-and-a-half to figure out what the fuck song it was; that's how different the arrangement was from that on the record. and it was fucking blinding.

so i love deserters songs and all is dream (which i was lucky enough to hear before its official us release date of September 11, 2001), but the secret migration was basically self-parody. the david baker-era records definitely have their moments, but he's far too cutesy for me to tolerate for long.

i don't know where the deserters-songs-as-the-reinvention-of-rock-n-roll notion came from...probably from the uk music press, desperate for some distant sonic relation to pet sounds.

I loved and cherished Mercury Rev in their various incarnations up to and including Deserter's Songs. For all the freewheeling lunacy David Baker brought to the table, and two stunning humdingers right out of the gate (Yerself and Boces), the band seemed to be maturing gracefully, and all the better for it, with Donahue at the helm.

But then came All is Dream and the technicolor dadrock rut. Donahue let the success of Deserter's Songs go to his head and melancholic whimsy soured overnight into cloying self-indulgence, perfectly encapsulated by Dream's overstuffed mystical-shit sleeve design. And yet there was an even more ostentatious record, and one more hideous New Age abortion of a cover design, down the pipeline still.

Well, I'm sad (but not surprised) that, based on this report, the potential for a return to form doesn't seem likely with these next two LPs. Rather, with song titles like "A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)," it looks as though Donahue would like to lead us further into the kaleidoscopic surrealism of his own ass. I can only imagine what the cover will look like.

Here are the tracklists. They're pulling an NIN and giving one away for free. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on ol' Hippie Jonny:

Snowflake Midnight (the pay one):

01 Snowflake in a Hot World
02 Butterfly's Wing
03 Senses on Fire
04 People Are So Unpredictable (There's No Bliss Like Home)
05 October Sunshine
06 Runaway Raindrop
07 Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower
08 Faraway From Cars
09 A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)

Strange Attractor (the free one):

01 Love Is Pure
02 Taken up Into Clouds, Changed and Rained Down
03 Pure Joie De La Solitude
04 Persistence and the Apis Mellifera
05 Fable of a Silver Moon
06 Loop Lisse, Loop
07 In My Heart, a Strange Attractor
08 Incident on Abeel Street
09 Af Den Fader Kommer Den Sol
10 Because Because Because
11 Nocturne for Norwood

i think i'm "agog" at this.

I've heard both. They fail to constitute a stunning return to form.

:( if he's being serious

also plz to babelfish the tracklists

i like see you on the other side best

01 snowflakes 02 Butterfly' which are in the hot world; The people of feeling 04 people of 03 will not be able to predict quite to, s wing fires (There' Does not like s, from 07 dreams 08 of the young girl is distant with the escaper raindrop flower of 06 where anyone happy) October 05th sunshine at the house 09 squirrels and I (… Catches above and making after that goes) 01 loves with 02 clouds which are pure to adopt, changes and like expense 03 Pure Joie De La Solitude 04 stubbornnesses which pour and Apis Mellifera from heart of repetition 07 of 05 emergence 06 repetitions Lisse of month, 11 Nocturne in Attractor Abeel distances which are strange Af oyster fader Kommer oyster Sol 10 because of 08 events 09 in because for Norwood in because

11 Nocturne in Attractor Abeel distances which are strange Af oyster fader Kommer oyster Sol 10 because of 08 events 09 in because for Norwood in because

this reads like the last garbled transmission before apocalypse

say what you will about The Secret Migration, but I think "Vermillion" is maybe the best track they've done in the last ten years. so so so good.

BOCES!!!

xpost: stephen - I liked "Vermillion" too (not quite as much as you, tho). I'd also pluck "In a Funny Way," "Nite and Fog," "Spiders & Flies" & "Tides of the Moon" from the detritus for a Rev compilation or something. There are probably a handful of other defensible tracks as well, but it's difficult to focus on the qualities of those albums when they're so overwhelmed by all that sweeping grotesquery.

The most depressing part of the whole thing is that the band are totally squandering their secret weapon: Grasshopper's devastating guitar freakouts. Remember those? They always seemed to climax gorgeously at just the right part of the song, usually by mangling some leitmotif with feedback and sending it skyrocketing. That's the kind of grandiosity I'd like to see from them, not JD crooning about twinkly stars amid tympani drums and harps. Combine the two approaches, sure, but relieve Grasshopper of cello duty and give the man his guitar back. I'm no rockist or anything -- just being sensible.

i'd agree with all that ^^

& sometimes it's sensible to be rockist :)

09 A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)

hahaha

I hear they're still an amazing live band, and I'm sure a lot of their recent material sounds better dirtied up a bit. I haven't seen them since 1998, but I'll check em out at ATP this September (pauses to daydream about MBV). As long as they rock the fuck out of "Chasing a Bee" (which I hear they still do) and maybe "Frittering" (less likely, but still possible), I will be more than happy.

I'll check em out at ATP this September

oh! you're going too, huh?

shhh, don't ge too excited. You'll scare Kevin away.

Yeah, some friends in NYC got tix and one is mine. I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out. I'll probably be sleeping in a car, but fuck it. The roster of bands at that show reads like a bulleted list of some geek fantasy my teenage self would have dreamt up in 1997 (so as to include Mogwai, otherwise 1994 or so). I still won't believe it until I'm personally witnessing the opening blast of "Only Shallow." The rest of the bands are just the icing on the cake.

I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out.

yeah same here ^^

i have no idea what i'm gonna do; a lot of the cheap(er) hotels in monticello are booked already, so who knows? i may call a weekend or two before and see if anyplace has had cancellations/has new openings.

also, i'll have the girlfriend with me so sleeping in a car is pretty much out of the question.

I think an underrated tune from Secret migration is "First time Mother's Joy". Lovely harmonies.

Sometimes "Frittering" is the only song you can hear when it's 3AM and you're feeling a bit melancholy, and the praise upthread for it is correct. The way the voice trails off at the end of most of the lines is the human equivalent of a wounded or lonely animal howling at the moon.

Frittering kills me every time.

Just listened to this earlier tonight. Stunning.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

mellotronny

What happened? I used to have Yerself is Steam AND Boces, but they're gone! Oh no.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

Sounds like a musical saw or theremin, to me.
I don't have a copy of yerself is steam anymore and that makes me sad cuz sometimes I need to hear "Frittering" and "Coney Island Cyclones."

o shit yeah they had a musical saw when i saw them on the DS tour

this looks pretty sweet: http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=3059
the recording, not the beard.

even if their recent music hasn't grabbed me, i've always enjoyed them live.

I'm a Rev-head from wayback when they were still entangled with the Flaming Lips, and for me there's no contest here. Search: Yerself Is Steam, Boces, See You on the Other Side [VERY under-rated IMO], Carwash Hair, Deserter's Songs. Destroy: everything after that! I was flat-out appalled at the tepid loungey whine of All Is Dream, and what I've heard from more recent releases hasn't really motivated me to rejoin the fold.

yeah i dunno -- I need to give Secret Migration another chance. I didn't really come to a conclusion on it. Couple of friends said it was their bes since Deserter's, but that might not be saying much. Honestly, though, these guys need a serious reissue campaign of the early stuff -- I think they'd have a resurgence if younger kids heard stuff like Yerself, Boces and See You On The Other Side.

Reissues would be fantastic! IMHO, Secret Migration radiates lame MoR-ness, but another listen is always a good thing.

haha, i realized I meant Snowflake Midnight, not Secret Migration ... Secret Migration I did come to a conclusion on -- sucks!

The Secret Migration has, like... two good tracks?

yeah maybe. a lot of it is soooo bad though. I liked All Is Dream, though I haven't listened to it in forever.

I thought All is Dream was the one with two good tracks (mainly the first one)

I want to listen to Chasing a Bee right now.

I liked all is dream but didnt care much for what came after.

I really like All Is Dream, hate Secret Migration, and Snowflake Midnight grew on me.

i also vaguely remember reading that the 30 or 40 minute track on the car wash hair ep is a mashup of random movie dialogue with actual recordings of one of the band members during a psychiatric visit

take it with a grain of salt since i have no way of verifying this

that would fit with its title ('lego my ego')

anyway they should have changed the name after baker left

Not posting it, but if you search Youtube for (ahem) 'Lionel Richie's Dick' you can see the video from which that psychiatric hospital section is taken... pretty harrowing stuff of course

Supposedly from an HBO documentary on schizophrenia that the band had a tape of