Mercury Rev

   
Artist: Mercury Rev

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   Indie
   ROck: Alternative
   Pop: Pop-Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Lego My Ego

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 8


   
 The Secret Migration

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 13


   
 All Is Dream

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 10


   
 Deserter's Songs

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 12


   
 Boces

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 10


   
 See You On The Other Side

   Year: 1995   
Tracks: 8


   
 Yerself Is Steam

   Year: 1991   
Tracks: 8

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Not so much a band as a prospicient, foreign trip, the chaotic avant pop pranksters Mercury Rev formed in Buffalo, NY, in the late '80s. Originally comprised of singer David Baker, vocalist/silver pickup guitar player Jonathan Donahue, guitar shaper/single-exhaust clarinettist Grasshopper (born Sean Mackowiak), rooster-tail sea bass flute player Suzanne Thorpe, sea bass iE Dave Fridmann, and mojo stick drummer Jimy Chambers, the sextette -- always plethoric with personality conflicts -- interacted with one another infrequently, and their number one recordings evolved simply as a means of creating soundtracks for the members' experimental educatee films as well as for Howard Nelson's Lite-Brite and Marco Fogg's Sugardaddy Sea.


Bucked up to further their music by donnish mentor Tony Conrad -- a minimalist composer and multimedia system artist world Health Organization had performed with John Cale, La Monte Young, and Faust -- the loosely connected aggregate dubbed Mercury Rev (a name whose brainchild was diversely attributed to an imaginary number Russian ballet social dancer, a sharp originate in temperature, or a revved-up machine) began to emerge, and eventually the chemical group recorded a demo onto a reel of 35mm magnetic plastic film. At the same time, Donahue was working as a concert promoter and scheduled a Butthole Surfers gig; after the show up, he befriended the support pretend, Oklahoma's likeminded Flaming Lips, and soon linked the turn as a guitar technician. Ultimately, Donahue -- under the false name "Dingus" -- became the Lips' wind guitar player, and with them recorded 1990's In a Priest Driven Ambulance, an album produced by Fridmann.


With Mercury Rev effectively in limbo and its members disordered across the country, their demonstration tape recording someways made its way to the British offices of the Rough Trade label, which contacted Baker about signing the radical. Soon, the banding convened to record their debut, Yerself Is Steam, an LP cut at the same time Donahue and Fridmann were too working on the Flaming Lips' major-label bow, Hit to Death in the Future Head. A brilliantly melodic and free form set highlighted by distorted art pop epics like "Chasing a Bee," "Coney Island Cyclone," and "Frittering," Yerself Is Steam was issued to far-flung acclaim in 1991; however, inside weeks of the LP's release Rough Trade's American branch stated failure, aborting whatever hopes of proper distribution or publicity.


Motionless, a British go followed, and non without incident; the performances, mounted without whatever practice roger Sessions, constantly teetered on the brink of decomposition -- set lists were nonexistent, and Baker often hopped off the stage (in midsong, no less) to grab a drink. Additionally, the radical was reportedly prohibited from aura move afterwards Donahue attempted to gouge out Grasshopper's oculus with a spoonful in mid-flight. Following the go, Mercury Rev again went their ramify shipway; the members ground menial jobs, stirred in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. Finally, Sony gestural the chemical group and reissued Yerself Is Steam along with an extra cart track, the empyrean single "Machine Wash Hair" (recorded with the aid of Luna's Dean Wareham later on Fridmann -- very much to his bandmates' alarm -- fatigued all of their win money to fund a Bermuda holiday software for his mother).


Amid considerable tension, Mercury Rev set up studio space in a barn to craft their instant album; after complemental the principal recording sessions, the chemical group collected samples from sites as far-ranging as Times Square and NASA's Cape Canaveral to flesh out the music's thick, prismatic sound. Following the release of the stunning 1993 LP, dubbed Boces in honour of an upstate New York school for children, Mercury Rev once again toured, tied performing the second degree at Lollapalooza; ultimately, the isthmus was kicked cancelled the bill during the festival's Denver stop imputable to overweening noise -- the electricity to the point was cut off in mid-performance, and concert security removed their soundman in a headlock. Additionally, an refine tV for the single "Something for Joey" was crack with the ill-famed porno star Ron Jeremy, merely the clip's suggestive space age sexcapades and ocular double-entendres made mainstream airplay a moot point.


After relations soured to the point where Baker was travelling to gigs apart from his bandmates, he was dismissed from Mercury Rev's ranks; under the name Shady, he returned in 1994 with Reality, an fantabulous solo LP recorded with luminaries from the Boo Radleys, Rollerskate Skinny, and St. Johnny. With their freshly perfected Tettix Wave Accumulator (patent pending) in towage, the leftover quint returned to the studio to record 1995's Fancy You on the Other Side, a beautiful, shimmering campaign that found the group -- newly freed of Baker's darker impulses -- exploring more and more diverse stylistic territory with newfound emotional depth. Under the name Harmony Rockets, Mercury Rev besides issued 1995's Paralytic Mind of the Archangel Void, a 40-minute improvisational expedition into ambient noise.


The lovely Deserter's Songs followed in the fall of 1998, and the album's appearance on stacks of best-of lists sparked a renaissance of sorts for Mercury Rev, peculiarly in England. For their succeeding album, the band was slated to work with Jack Nitzsche -- famed for his arrangements on many classics of the Phil Spector canon -- until Nitzsche passed aside a week ahead recording began. Expanding on the dramatic blueprint of Deserter's Songs (in a way Nitzsche would sure enough have been proud of), Mercury Rev released All Is Dream on September 11, 2001. Orphic Migration arrived in 2005; reflecting the band's popularity in the U.K., it was released thither that winter and in the U.S. that spring. Late 2006/early 2007 was a busybodied time for the band, with the best-of Essential: Stillness Breathes 1991-2006, the soundtrack Hi Blackbird, and the mix album Back to Mine all arriving at that time.