Un sogno psichedelico...

Una miscela originale di psichedelia, avanguardia, noise e post-space rock. E’ la ricetta dei Mercury Rev, una delle band piu’ interessanti degli anni Novanta, capace di conquistare il pubblico dell’“alternative-rock” sia in patria, negli Stati Uniti, sia in Gran Bretagna, dove ha compiuto anche una fortunata tournée insieme a My Bloody Valentine e Ride.

I Mercury Rev si formano a Buffalo, New York, nel 1989, dopo qualche anno di gavetta tra colonne sonore per film di studenti e lungometraggi a basso costo. Il nucleo originario comprende il cantante David Baker, il chitarrista Sean "Grasshopper" Mackiowiak, Suzanne Thorpe al flauto, Jimmy Chambers alla batteria, l’ex-chitarrista dei Flaming Lips Jonathan Donahue e il bassista Dave Friedmann, già produttore e ingegnere del suono per gli stessi Flaming Lips. E della band di Wayne Coyne, i Mercury Rev condividono lo stile particolare ed eccentrico, capace di passare dal “feedback” piu’ rumoroso alla psichedelica piu’ tenue. Uno stile che e’ gia’ definito nell’album d’esordio Yerself is steam, del 1991.

E’ un disco anarchico, che gioca sulle dissonanze delle chitarre e sulla delicatezza di flauto ed archi in un singolare intrico di suoni e atmosfere. “L’impressione – scrive il critico rock Piero Scaruffi - e` che il loro sound caotico e vorticoso abbia una funzione catartica, miri al raggiungimento di un nirvana acido come quello dei primi hippie di San Francisco. Ma ogni brano nasconde nevrosi terribili, che amplificano quelle del Neil Young piu` elettrico, e che danno origine ad atmosfere malate e decadenti, invece di quelle ottimiste e spensierate degli anni '60. Le schizofreniche composizioni dei Mercury Rev sono ballate delicate che nascondono un animo da serial killer”. Ascoltare per credere l'agghiacciante "Black and blue", pervasa da una tensione cupa e intonata da Baker in uno stile a meta' tra il Lou Reed piu' perverso e il David Thomas piu' delirante. Il disco è un viaggio inquietante tra suoni, rumori e visioni. Si passa cosi’ dalla trance ipnotica di “Frittering” al delirio onirico di “Chasing a bee”, dalla sarabanda di chitarre di “Smooth stringe”, alla danza sufi di “Sweet odyssee of a cancer cell”, fino ai dodici minuti finali di “Very sleepy rivers”, sospesi tra le pantomime dei Pere Ubu e le atmosfere spaziali dei Pink Floyd.

La folle anarchia della loro musica torna con Boces (1993), forte delle raffinate armonie di “Meth of a rockette's kick” (con un etereo assolo al flauto di Thorpe e improvvise distorsioni di chitarre), ma anche del lungo raga di “Snorry mouth” e della ballata blues “Girlfren”, con reminescenze di Tom Waits. Nel frattempo, Baker lascia il complesso per formare gli Shady e Donahue diventa il cantante unico. Adam Snyder si aggiunge alle tastiere elettroniche (mellotron, sintetizzatore, piano elettrico), a triplicare quelle suonate da Chambers (clavinet, clavicembalo) e Fridmann (pianoforte e mellotron). Seguono nel 1995 See you on the other side, che segna una svolta verso un suono piu’ pop, e un esperimento di ambient music, Paralyzed mind of the archangel void, pubblicato dalla band con lo pseudonimo di Harmony Rockets. 

Nel 1998, con Deserter’s songs, i Mercury Rev tornano alla loro forma migliore. L’orchestrazione e’ accresciuta da violino, corno, trombone e contrabbasso, e il risultato e’ nella poliedricita’ degli arrangiamenti, che spaziano tra atmosfere allucinate, soffici ballate nello stile dei Beatles e suite psichedeliche degne dei migliori Pink Floyd. L’apertura di “Holes” e’ all’insegna di una sinfonia di archi e del flauto pastorale di Thorpe. “Tonite it shows” rievoca gli arrangiamenti piu’ sublimi delle colonne sonore degli anni '50, tra oboe, violini, arpa e xilofono. “Endlessly” raggiunge un clima ancor piu’ surreale grazie alle vibrazioni atmosferiche del theremin. “Hudson line” combina lo struggente sassofono di Garth Hudson (The Band) con una frenetica chitarra elettrica, un coro e una sezione d'archi. “Opus 40” riecheggia i violini di “Penny Lane” dei Beatles. “The Funny Bird” e’ una ballata struggente, che culmina in un bruciante assolo di chitarra. Il gruppo sembra quasi compiacersi dell’affiatamento raggiunto e della perfezione barocca del suo suono.

Gli arrangiamenti dell’album, in particolare, sono memorabili: un tripudio di tastiere elettroniche, organi, archi, flauti, con le chitarre a graffiare sullo sfondo. Una girandola di timbri e di melodie che consacra i Mercury Rev come una delle migliori band psichedeliche di fine secolo. "Uno dei segreti della nostra musica – racconta Donahue – e’ la sua qualita’ onirica. Vogliamo creare un nostro piccolo mondo. Anche per questo abbiamo chiamato l’album ‘Deserter’s song’. Volevamo abbandonare il nostro passato, le cose che avevamo fatto, il mondo in cui viviamo. E il titolo voleva esprimere anche un segno di distacco da certa musica in voga oggi, una musica da cui ci sentiamo molto distanti”. E “Grasshopper” aggiunge: "La parola ‘deserter’ viene dall’antico ebraico e dai mistici cristiani, che andavano nel deserto per staccare con la loro realta’ e crearsi un mondo proprio. Proprio cio’ che volevamo fare noi con le nostre composizioni”.

E’ infinita la gamma di influenze che i Mercury Rev traducono in musica. In una recensione su “The Independent”, il critico inglese Andy Gill li ha definiti "l’anello mancante tra i Chemical Brothers e The Band" e ha scritto che l’esito di “Deserter’s songs” e’ un “Pet Sounds dei Beach Boys cantato da Neil Young”. Ma a segnare profondamente la loro opera e’ tutta la psichedelia, dai Velvet Underground ai Red Crayola, dai Pink Floyd ai Flaming Lips. E a dare un fascino particolare alle loro composizioni e’ anche il senso evocativo che riescono ad esprimere. Spiega Donahue: “Vogliamo evocare un senso proustiano di ‘atemporalita’’, fare in modo che anche un innocente frammento di melodia possa riuscire a destare ricordi turbolenti. Da bambino, mia madre mi faceva ascoltare classici della musica leggera come Sinatra e Bartok. Io mi ribellavo contro questo, ma ora e’ come se avessi metabolizzato le sensazioni che provavo a cinque anni di fronte a quella musica, e molte delle nostre melodie hanno a che fare con tutto questo. Cerchiamo di creare una musica senza tempo, universale, una musica in cui ognuno puo’ trovare un qualcosa che gli riporti alla mente un episodio, una ragazza, un odore, un ricordo d’infanzia”. Ascoltare per credere. Quello della band americana, infatti, e’ veramente un “meltin pot” universale, una ricetta capace di resistere all’usura degli anni come poche altre nel panorama del rock odierno.

Il sound dei Mercury Rev si fa ancora più sinfonico in All Is Dream (2001), un album che conferma il trend inaugurato dalla band di Buffalo con Deserter’s Songs smussando le ruvidità degli esordi in favore di un pop sempre più raffinato, solenne e onirico. Il "padre spirituale" del disco è il leggendario Jack Nitzsche, che doveva esserne il produttore, ma è morto una settimana prima dell'inizio delle registrazioni. L'impronta di Nitzsche è palpabile nel "muro del suono" di arrangiamenti lussuosi, a volte persino ridondanti, con l’impiego massiccio di una vasta sezione di archi a fare da contrappunto alle chitarre. "Il lavoro di Jack ci ha sempre ispirato - racconta Donahue -. Non solo le sue collaborazioni con Neil Young e Rolling Stones, ma anche le sue colonne sonore, da "Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo" a "L'Esorcista".

L’effetto sul suono è di grande suggestione. Le atmosfere di Donahue e compagni si fanno sempre più astratte ed evocative. "The Dark Is Rising" si apre delicatamente, esplodendo come il più trascinante dei temi dei film di 007, prima che il falsetto stridulo di Donahue e un soffice piano costruiscano un'atmosfera intima, destinata ad essere nuovamente soppiantata dal crescendo dell'orchestra. "Tides Of The Moon" combina strutture rock con strani intrecci di tastiere e xilofono sui quali irrompe la voce di Donahue, che canta di un “volo dentro la superficie del sole…” La misteriosa "Lincoln’s Eyes", invece, fonde atmosfere minimaliste e paesaggi sonori alla Morricone con una melodia struggente alla Van Dyke Parks. "Nite and fog" è una splendida ballata visionaria, mentre "Drop in time" è una raffinata digressione pop.

A psychedelic dream

Few bands of today can compare to the universal sound of Mercury Rev, a musical “meltin’ pot” that was made perfect in “Deserter’s songs”. This is the story of this Buffalo’s band, a group of friends who started playing music for students movies soundtracks

The formula of Mercury Rev is an original melange of psychedelic music, noise-rock avant-garde, space-rock and post-rock. A formula that has revealed them as one of the most interesting bands of the Nineties. They got a lot of fans in the alternative-rock audience in their homeland, the USA, but also in the UK, where they was on tour with My Bloody Valentine e Ride. Mercury Rev were born in Buffalo, New York, in 1989. Their previous experiences were some students movies soundtracks they composed during the school years. The original ensemble included the singer David Baker, the guitarist Sean "Grasshopper" Mackiowiak, Suzanne Thorpe on flute, Jimmy Chambers on drums, the former-Flaming Lips Jonathan Donahue and Dave Friedmann on the bass guitar (former manager and sound engineer for the same Flaming Lips). As the Wayne Coyne’s band, also Mercury Rev like an eccentric style of playing, that can space from the noisiest “feedback” to the softest psychedelic melodies. A style recognizable since their debut album, Yerself Is Steam (1991). It’s an anarchic cocktail of music, with the guitars dissonances and the sweetness of flutes and strings creating a peculiar mix of sounds and atmospheres. 

“You have the impression that their chaotic sound aim for an acid nirvana in the way of the early hippies of San Francisco”, the rock critic Piero Scaruffi wrote. “But every song hides terrible neurosis that amplifies the most electric repertory of Neil Young, giving birth to decadent and sick atmospheres, far away from the ‘optimistic’ philosophy of the Sixties. Mercury Rev schizoid compositions are tender ballads with a serial killer soul”. 

The results is the hypnotic trance of “Frittering” and the dreaming delirium of “Chasing A Bee”, the noisy guitar-oriented “Smooth Stringe”, the Sufi dance “Sweet Odyssee of a cancer cell” and the final twelve minutes of “Very Sleepy Rivers”, that can merge the Pere Ubu’s rock pantomimes with the cosmic atmospheres of the early Pink Floyd. 

Their fool anarchy came again with Boces (1993), an album marked by the refined harmonies of “Meth Of A Rockette's Kick” (with a flute a solo by Thorpe and sudden guitars distortions), but also by the long ballads “Snorry Mouth” and “Girlfren”, partly influenced by the Tom Waits rock-blues. In the meantime, Baker left the band in order to form the Shady and Donahue became the solo singer. Adam Snyder joined the band playing electronic keyboards (mellotron, synth, electric piano), together with Chambers (clavinet, harpsichord) and Fridmann (piano and mellotron).

In 1995 the band released the pop-oriented See You On The Other Side and an ambient music experiment, Paralyzed Mind Of The Archangel Void, published under the name of Harmony Rockets. 

The Mercury Rev masterpiece was issued on 1998. It was called Deserter’s Songs and was played by a huge orchestra integrated by violin, horn, trombone and double bass. The wide range of arrangements drove their sound in magic atmospheres, merging tender ballads a la Beatles and psychedelic suites in the style of the early Pink Floyd. The overture, “Holes”, was marked by a string symphony and by the Thorpe’s flute. “Tonite It Shows” recalled the most sublime arrangements of the Fifties soundtracks. “Endlessly” was set in an even more surrealistic atmosphere, thanks to the theremin vibrations. “Hudson Line” combined the gloomy saxophone by Garth Hudson (The Band) and a frantic electric guitar, a choir and a string set. “Opus 40” echoed the violins of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane”. “The Funny Bird” was a touching ballad, that culminated in an incendiary guitar a solo.

The band seemed to suit perfectly the harmony and the Baroque perfection they got in their music. And the album’s arrangements were memorable as well: a triumph of electric keyboards, organ, strings, flutes, with the noisy guitars on the background. A cocktail of timbres and melodies that revealed Mercury Rev as one of the best psychedelic bands of today. “The dreamy side of our music is one of its secrets”, Donahue told. “We wanted to create our own little world. That’s why we entitled the album ‘Deserter’s song’. We wanted to abandon our past, the things we did, the world we lived in. And this title also meant we wanted to be far from certain music of today”. “Grasshopper” added: "The word ‘deserter’ comes from the ancient ebraic and the mystic Christians that moved to the desert in order to create their own world. That was what we wanted to do as well”.

The range of musical influences on the Mercury Rev sound is infinite. In a review published on the Independent, the English critic Andy Gill defined the band the link between the Chemical Brothers and The Band" and wrote that “Deserter’s Songs” sounded like “Pet Sounds of the Beach Boys sang by Neil Young”. But the main influence on their music is the entire history of psychedelic music, from the Velvet Underground to Red Crayola, from Pink Floyd to Flaming Lips. All their compositions can always be evocative. Donahue explained: “We want to create a sense of ‘timeless’ in the style of Proust, making every little piece of melody a part of a turbulent memory. When I was a child, my mother made me listen some light music classics, such as Sinatra and Bartok. I couldn’t stand it at that time, but now it seems I absorbed all the feelings this music made me feel. Many of our melodies are involved in it. We try to play a timeless and universal music, a music that can recall something to everyone, a circumstance, a girl, a smell, a childhood memory”. Maybe he’s right. The Mercury Rev’s “melting pot” is really universal. A formula that can stand up to wear and tear in the international rock panorama.

The sound of Mercury Rev got even more symphonic in All Is Dream (2001), a work that confirmed their new trend started from Deserter’s Songs: more pop sounds and dreamy atmospheres, less noise-guitar rock. The album's "godfather" is the legendary Jack Nitzsche, who was destined to become the work's producer but died one week before the starting of the recordings. The Nitzsche's shadow surrounds this sort of "wall of sound", made of baroque arrangements (sometimes almost redundant), enriched by a wide strings ensemble that faces up the guitars. "Jack's music has always been a reference for us, from his collaborations with Neil Young and Rolling Stones to movies soundtracks such as "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and "The Exorcist", Donahue explained.

The music of Mercury Rev got even more solemn and evocative: "The Dark Is Rising" opens proceedings, erupting like a volcanic Bond theme, before Donahue’s cracked falsetto and gentle piano usher us somewhere hazily intimate, only for the orchestra to surge again. "Tides Of The Moon" combines more traditional rock textures with blessed-out keyboards and xylophones over which Donahue emotes beatifically about “flying into the face of the sun…” The mysterious "Lincoln’s Eyes", meanwhile, fuses minimal, Ennio Morricone atmospheres with a wounded, Van Dyke Parks-like melody. "Nite and fog" is a wonderful and evocative ballad, while "Drop in time" is a refined pop-oriented digression.

Mercury Rev have taken the predecessor’s windswept mini symphonies as a benchmark, expanding them epically or reducing them to achingly fragile vignettes. The sense of horizons being widened is palpable. The noisy atmospheres of “Yerself Is Steam” are far away. But the Buffalo's band has reached a new goal in developing its new project. That is to distort the stereotypes of traditional pop and create a new formula that can merge the 50's soundtracks and vaudeville with the sick, psychedelic ballads of the Velvet Underground. 

Goddess On A Hiway

Well I got us on a hiway an' I got us in a car

Got us goin' faster that we've ever gone before

An' I know it ain't gonna last

An' I know it ain't gonna last

When I see yr eyes arrive

they explode like two bugs on glass

Far above th' ocean, deep under th' sea

There's a river runnin' dry because of you an' me

She's a goddess on a hiway a goddess in a car

A goddess goin' faster than she's ever gone before

                           Mercury Rev

When I see yr eyes arrive...

Serpent with yr blue planet eyes...

Got telephones for eyes...

With eyes like Abe Lincoln...

Spiders and Flies

Plans an' schemes

Thoughts an' dreams

Who cares what they mean...

When they work they're amazing things

When they don't I hear you scream

Spiders an' flies, live an' die

Six legs to stand on an' two wings to fly

I can't remember an' I can't decide

What was th' season an' th' color of yr eyes

Favourite queens

Buried with their

Precious rings

When they lived they loved complete

But in their tombs I  hear them scream

Spiders an' flies, live an' die

Six legs to stand on an' two wings to fly

It makes you wonder, why can't I

Magic blast

Who cares what they cast

I dreamed I'd always love you complete

I never thought I'd hear you scream

Spiders an' flies, live an' die

Eight legs to stand on an' two wings to fly

It makes you wonder, why can't I

What was th' reason for th' color of yr eyes

Other songs/records/projects featuring Jonathan:

with The Flaming Lips:

In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)

Hit To Death In The Future Head  (1992)

Providing Needles For Your Balloons (1994)

This Here Giraffe (1996)

A Collection Of Songs...1984-1990 (1998)

Paralyzed Mind Of The Archangel Void  (1995)

I've Got A Golden Ticket (1997)

Collaboration:

A Camp, A Camp (2001)

The Chemical Brothers, Dig Your Own Hole () - Jonathan appears on The Private Psychedelic Reel

Jonathan Donahue: I feel really good. That's why it takes us such a long of time to make them. We want to know that when it is done, we can sleep well at night regardless of in the long run how well it goes. No matter what happens in the charts or record sales or anything, we put everything we possibly have into it.

Virginmega.com: What was your biggest obstacle in making the album?

Jonathan: I was trying to make sure that things flowed out of me and didn't really run through too much of the selfish control aspect that can sometimes happen with the human instinct rather than the human intuition. With a hammer and chisel, sometimes when you do a sculpture it is better to just go and do it without thinking. Sometimes if you brood over stuff too hard, you tend to suck the life out of it, you know? Less is more. Just listen to the songs and they'll tell you what they need. And that's what we do.

Virginmega.com: It's a stunning record - spooky in a gorgeous sort of way. Do you sense the eeriness in it yourself?

Jonathan: That's just my mind. I'm not sure I'm a subjective person. It's the most accurate representation I can say of most of my imagination, especially as far as the lyrics. I sort of see it as me, not in a very egotistical way, but just because that's what's going on in my mind at that point in time. So if it's spooky, it's just me.

Virginmega.com: I read that you take a lot of the lyrics from half remembered dreams. Is that true?

Jonathan: A lot of the symbolism and archetypes that float through my dreams inhabit a lot of the lyrics. There are a lot of creatures in there that are metaphorical more than anything. I try to make some sense of them and how they relate. A lot of it is just intuitive. Often times you see an image before you and it won't let you go. For me, I have to write it out, work it out and manifest it in a physical way. Then the dream will let me go and move on to something else. Otherwise it just keeps beating me over the head and I don't get much sleep.

Virginmega.com: In “The Dark is Rising,” when you sing about things being concealed or revealed, was that written to a certain person or was it metaphorical?

Jonathan: Both. The meanings go a little bit bigger and encompass more of the idea in all. There is a lot of levels to the meaning. Whether people care to search them out, I leave to the listener. It's the mythology that we all live. Joseph Campbell [popular mythologist author] was big into that - the personal mythology. This is my mythology for that period of time, lyrically. My heroes' journey, so to speak, for the time that I was writing.

Virginmega.com: Besides music, what else matters to you?

Jonathan: My dogs, friendships with people that are at home … stuff that I heavily love and rely on and often times treat quite poorly. These things are held dear.

Virginmega.com: You have dogs?

Jonathan: We've got a farm [in the Catskill Mountains] and they run all around. They've got snakes that live there and things like that. So, a lot of my day is just spent living with animals.

Virginmega.com: That helps explain the reoccurring images in lyrics like spiders, snakes, the moon …

Jonathan: There are a lot of snakes that inhabit my farm and most people are fearful, but I just go out and talk with them for hours. I have a little lawn chair out there where they all just bask in the sun and we talk and stuff like that, so obviously they pop up in my dreams from time to time telling me things to look out for. It's kind of a weird symbiotic relationship. It works for me. Most people think it's crazy.

Virginmega.com: What kinds of things do they warn you against? Are they accurate?

Jonathan: Depending on how well I interpret them, they are always accurate, but sometimes it takes awhile to tune in. There are a couple different serpents. One is better at sort of being human in his translation. Some are pretty symbolic and it takes me a while to figure out what they are doing. If I talk to one whose name is Onyx, a 7-8 foot long black snake, he's good. They're not poisonous, but they are really long and look like cobras. Then there is the female one. She is deeper. I don't understand her so well - it takes me a while to sort of get up to her wavelength. She takes some time if I see her in a dream. A lot of times it's just very, ‘hey, look out for this.' She is very protective. She would be the one to tell me if someone is on my ass, in a bad way. If someone is messing with me in some way that is going to manifest itself, she'll give me the heads up. Onyx is more about generalizations and sometimes he is more like a trickster. He just sort of plays with me and f***s with me a little bit more. They always sort of give you what you can understand, plus a little bit more.

Virginmega.com: A bit like Mercury Rev's music.

Jonathan: Yeah.