After giving us two previous singles, “Patterns” and “Ancient Love”, it is now the turn of “A Bird Of No Address”. This is the third single from the long-awaited new album by Mercury Rev titled “Born Horses”, which will be released on September 6th through Bella Union.
About this third single, Grasshopper himself, the band’s guitarist, has stated that: “As Poet Laureate of Hope Rebecca Solnit writes, ‘The foundations of hope are in the shadows, in the people who are inventing the world while no one is looking, who don’t yet know if they will have any effect.’ To all the directionless birds: Fly away!”. To which he added “When Jonathan and I met, one of the things that brought us together was “Blade Runner”both Ridley Scott’s film and Vangelis’ soundtrack: that sense of past and future, the disturbing noir atmosphere and the romanticism of the future… “Born Horses” “It picks up on some of that. Going back to childhood, to Broadway tunes, to lonely blues, to Chet Baker, to Miles Davis’ Sketches Of Spain, records our parents listened to, but giving it a twist towards the future. From the beginning, Mercury Rev were on the 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 think a lot about the desert on this record, and the urban desert.”
On the other hand, Jonathan Donahue, vocalist of the band, has added that: “When I opened my voice to sing on the record, this was the bird that sang: a deeper, more fluttering voice, which surprised me as much as it did others. I don’t know where the bird came from, but it’s there now, and I don’t question it. It’s just the bird that wants to sing.”
Here is the video in “visualizer” format of the new single from the Americans:
Since its formation in 1989, Mercury Rev has made a career out of boldly exploring the boundaries of artistic perception, channeling sounds and visions. The band’s 1991 debut, “Yerself Is Steam”appeared on Pitchfork’s list of the best shoegaze albums of all time, and their breakthrough 1998 album, Deserter’s Songswas considered one of the best albums of that year by various specialized publications, including Mondo Sonoro.
