Mercury Rev have announced Born Horses, their first album of original music in nine years. It follows 2015’s The Light in You as well as their 2019 covers album Bobbie Gentry’s the Delta Sweete Revisited. The 8-track LP is due for release on September 6 via Bella Union. Check out the new single ‘Patterns’ below.
“When we gaze up at the stars in the sky at night, the flickering lights seem random,” Mercury Rev said of the new song in a statement. “If we could zoom out and see all of the galaxies revolving around each other, we would see the order in it. There are only Patterns on top of Patterns….”
Speaking about the album, bandleader Jonathan Donahue explained: “Since our beginning in the mid 80’s with David Baker through the recording of Born Horses with new permanent members, Woodstock native (pianist) Jesse Chandler and Austrian born (keyboardist) Marion Genser, we’ve celebrated this unspoken trust in the ‘statue already inside the marble’. We didn’t make Born Horses by throwing clay on top of clay; we allowed Time to reveal what was always there.”
Grasshopper added: “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.”
Born Horses Cover Artwork:
Born Horses Tracklist:
1. Mood Swings
2. Ancient Love
3. Your Hammer, My Heart
4. Patterns
5. A Bird Of No Address
6. Born Horses
7. Everything I Thought I Had Lost
8. There’s Always Been A Bird In Me
