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Fully cementing Mercury Rev’s rebirth as purveyors of a cosmic brand of the popular American songbook, Deserter’s Songs is an album of grandiose proportions. Merging jazz, folk, sweeping orchestration, and a dose of 60’s rock, the album was intended as the band’s swan song and therefore made with utter abandon.
However, it became the band’s most acclaimed platter and remains one of the essential records of the past 30 years. Deserter’s Songs was released to huge worldwide acclaim and went on to be named album of the year in 1998 by NME, MOJO and many other publications, quickly propelling the legendary iconoclasts into living rooms worldwide and pioneered the launch of a new genre of music, heard today in bands like Arcade Fire and Beirut. Available on vinyl once again on the band’s own imprint Excelsior Melodies.
However, it became the band’s most acclaimed platter and remains one of the essential records of the past 30 years. Deserter’s Songs was released to huge worldwide acclaim and went on to be named album of the year in 1998 by NME, MOJO and many other publications, quickly propelling the legendary iconoclasts into living rooms worldwide and pioneered the launch of a new genre of music, heard today in bands like Arcade Fire and Beirut. Available on vinyl once again on the band’s own imprint Excelsior Melodies.
TRACK LISTING
1. Holes
2. Tonite It Shows
3. Endlessly
4. I Collect Coins
5. Opus 40
6. Hudson Line
7. The Happy End (The Drunk Room)
8. Goddess On A Hiway
9. The Funny Bird
10. Pick Up If You're There
11. Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp
The archetypal Martin Rev sound – a perennial influence on generations of musicians – is most prominently in evidence in the works of Suicide, the duo he played in across the decades with Alan Vega. However, the radical and distinctive nature of his music can be traced further back in time, originating in the base energy of rock’n’roll which the teenage Rev experienced as the ubiquitous soundtrack to his home city of New York.
Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock’n’roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career.
Martin Rev’s predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev’s solo albums.
Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on "The Sum of Our Wounds" are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds.
Martin Rev himself remains as transfixed as ever by these recordings, as if he could immediately pick up where he left off and continue to expand on the ideas that came to him decades ago: »They often have a certain freshness or unpolished energy here... and (there is) always scope for new ideas, to be derived from them as a whole or even in small areas.«
The cassette medium proves to be more than a means to an end – the tape recorder itself has a role to play as an instrument, the ideal basis for an artist who understands how to condense an idea into its fundamental elements: »The cassette sound, with its individual peculiarities, many even thought of in terms of inferior sound, can have an interesting dynamic. Maybe especially in certain minimal contexts when they are not being overloaded. Although they often seem to take on a lot of texture as well and with a warm response.«
And so these snapshots can be seen as stages of a ceaseless evolution, one we are allowed to witness as we sit alongside Martin Rev at the tape deck, listening as he captures the sounds of the unquiet city. - Daniel Jahn, June 2023
Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock’n’roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career.
Martin Rev’s predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev’s solo albums.
Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on "The Sum of Our Wounds" are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds.
Martin Rev himself remains as transfixed as ever by these recordings, as if he could immediately pick up where he left off and continue to expand on the ideas that came to him decades ago: »They often have a certain freshness or unpolished energy here... and (there is) always scope for new ideas, to be derived from them as a whole or even in small areas.«
The cassette medium proves to be more than a means to an end – the tape recorder itself has a role to play as an instrument, the ideal basis for an artist who understands how to condense an idea into its fundamental elements: »The cassette sound, with its individual peculiarities, many even thought of in terms of inferior sound, can have an interesting dynamic. Maybe especially in certain minimal contexts when they are not being overloaded. Although they often seem to take on a lot of texture as well and with a warm response.«
And so these snapshots can be seen as stages of a ceaseless evolution, one we are allowed to witness as we sit alongside Martin Rev at the tape deck, listening as he captures the sounds of the unquiet city. - Daniel Jahn, June 2023
TRACK LISTING
01. Yearning
02. Dreams
03. Skateboard
04. Laredo
05. Zeitpunkt
06. Rio Grande
07. Baby O Baby (Mix)
08. Abracadabra
09. Lineup
10. El Barrio
11. She's Back
12. Temptation (Mix)
13. Asia (Mix)
14. Around The Corner
15. Mari (Mix)
16. Whisper (Vocal)
Hazy dream chronicles.
A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release "To Live" instead of synthesizers.
"Les Nymphes", which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. Once again, this work demonstrates the rigour of Martin Rev's approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. "Les Nymphes" is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode.
A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release "To Live" instead of synthesizers.
"Les Nymphes", which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. Once again, this work demonstrates the rigour of Martin Rev's approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. "Les Nymphes" is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode.
American indie label File 13 Records released what was already Martin Rev's sixth solo album in the autumn of 2003. The previous year, Rev and his musical partner Alan Vega had struck out in a new direction on their "American Supreme" album and Rev's solo works continued in a similar vein. If "Strangeworld" from the year 2000 actually felt more like a timeless abstract of Martin Rev's entire spectrum of musical influences,
"To Live", three years later, introduces more contemporary elements, including guitar samples for the first time. "To Live" is not easy to digest, a work of contradictions which marks a transition in Martin Rev's overall output as a child of its time, worthy of special attention in his legacy.
"To Live", three years later, introduces more contemporary elements, including guitar samples for the first time. "To Live" is not easy to digest, a work of contradictions which marks a transition in Martin Rev's overall output as a child of its time, worthy of special attention in his legacy.
Alvvays never intended to take five years to finish their third album, the nervy joyride that is the compulsively lovable Blue Rev. In fact, the band began writing and cutting its first bits soon after releasing 2017’s Antisocialites, that stunning sophomore record that confirmed the Toronto quintet’s status atop a new generation of winning and whip-smart indie rock.
Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions. Alvvays toured more than expected, a surefire interruption for a band that doesn’t write on the road. A watchful thief then broke into singer Molly Rankin’s apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the band’s gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to border closures, couldn’t rehearse for months with their masterful new one, drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell.
At least the five-year wait was worthwhile: Blue Rev doesn’t simply reassert what’s always been great about Alvvays but instead reimagines it. They have, in part and sum, never been better. There are 14 songs on Blue Rev, making it not only the longest Alvvays album but also the most harmonically rich and lyrically provocative.
There are newly aggressive moments here—the gleeful and snarling guitar solo at the heart of opener “Pharmacist,” or the explosive cacophony near the middle of “Many Mirrors.” And there are some purely beautiful spans, too—the church- organ fantasia of “Fourth Figure,” or the blue-skies bridge of “Belinda Says.” But the power and magic of Blue Rev stems from Alvvays’ ability to bridge ostensible binaries, to fuse elements that seem antithetical in single songs—cynicism and empathy, anger and play, clatter and melody, the soft and the steely. The luminous poser kiss-off of “Velveteen,” the lovelorn confusion of “Tile by Tile,” the panicked but somehow reassuring rush of “After the Earthquake”.
The songs of Blue Rev thrive on immediacy and intricacy, so good on first listen that the subsequent spins where you hear all the details are an inevitability.
This perfectly dovetailed sound stems from an unorthodox—and, for Alvvays, wholly surprising—recording process, unlike anything they’ve ever done. Alvvays are fans of fastidious demos, making maps of new tunes so complete they might as well have topographical contour lines.
But in October 2021, when they arrived at a Los Angeles studio with fellow Canadian Shawn Everett, he urged them to forget the careful planning they’d done and just play the stuff, straight to tape. On the second day, they ripped through Blue Rev front-to-back twice, pausing only 15 seconds between songs and only 30 minutes between full album takes. And then, as Everett has done on recent albums by The War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves, he spent an obsessive amount of time alongside Alvvays filling in the cracks, roughing up the surfaces, and mixing the results. This hybridized approach allowed the band to harness each song’s absolute core, then grace it with texture and depth. Notice the way, for instance, that “Tom Verlaine” bursts into a jittery jangle; then marvel at the drums and drum machines ricocheting off one another, the harmonies that crisscross, and the stacks of guitar that rise between riff and hiss, subtle but essential layers that reveal themselves in time.
Every element of Alvvays leveled up in the long interim between albums: Riley is a classic dynamo of a drummer, with the power of a rock deity and the finesse of a jazz pedigree. Their roommate, in-demand bassist Blackwell, finds the center of a song and entrenches it. Keyboardist Kerri MacLellan joined Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley to write more this time, reinforcing the band’s collective quest to break patterns heard on their first two albums.
The results are beyond question: Blue Rev has more twists and surprises than Alvvays’ cumulative past, and the band seems to revel in these taken chances. This record is fun and often funny, from the hilarious reply-guy bash of “Very Online Guy” to the parodic grind of “Pomeranian Spinster.”
Alvvays’ self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in its early 20s, offered speculation about a distant future—marriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship. Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. Named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton, Blue Rev looks both back at that country past and forward at an uncertain world, reckoning with what we lose whenever we make a choice about what we want to become.
The spinster with her Pomeranians or Belinda with her babies? The kid fleeing Bristol by train or the loyalist stunned to see old friends return? “How do I gauge whether this is stasis or change?” Rankin sings during the first verse of the plangent and infectious “Easy on Your Own?” In that moment, she pulls the ties tight between past, present, and future to ask hard questions about who we’re going to become, and how. Sure, it arrives a few years later than expected, but the answer for Alvvays is actually simple: They’ve changed gradually, growing on Blue Rev into one of their generation’s most complete and riveting rock bands.
Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions. Alvvays toured more than expected, a surefire interruption for a band that doesn’t write on the road. A watchful thief then broke into singer Molly Rankin’s apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the band’s gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to border closures, couldn’t rehearse for months with their masterful new one, drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell.
At least the five-year wait was worthwhile: Blue Rev doesn’t simply reassert what’s always been great about Alvvays but instead reimagines it. They have, in part and sum, never been better. There are 14 songs on Blue Rev, making it not only the longest Alvvays album but also the most harmonically rich and lyrically provocative.
There are newly aggressive moments here—the gleeful and snarling guitar solo at the heart of opener “Pharmacist,” or the explosive cacophony near the middle of “Many Mirrors.” And there are some purely beautiful spans, too—the church- organ fantasia of “Fourth Figure,” or the blue-skies bridge of “Belinda Says.” But the power and magic of Blue Rev stems from Alvvays’ ability to bridge ostensible binaries, to fuse elements that seem antithetical in single songs—cynicism and empathy, anger and play, clatter and melody, the soft and the steely. The luminous poser kiss-off of “Velveteen,” the lovelorn confusion of “Tile by Tile,” the panicked but somehow reassuring rush of “After the Earthquake”.
The songs of Blue Rev thrive on immediacy and intricacy, so good on first listen that the subsequent spins where you hear all the details are an inevitability.
This perfectly dovetailed sound stems from an unorthodox—and, for Alvvays, wholly surprising—recording process, unlike anything they’ve ever done. Alvvays are fans of fastidious demos, making maps of new tunes so complete they might as well have topographical contour lines.
But in October 2021, when they arrived at a Los Angeles studio with fellow Canadian Shawn Everett, he urged them to forget the careful planning they’d done and just play the stuff, straight to tape. On the second day, they ripped through Blue Rev front-to-back twice, pausing only 15 seconds between songs and only 30 minutes between full album takes. And then, as Everett has done on recent albums by The War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves, he spent an obsessive amount of time alongside Alvvays filling in the cracks, roughing up the surfaces, and mixing the results. This hybridized approach allowed the band to harness each song’s absolute core, then grace it with texture and depth. Notice the way, for instance, that “Tom Verlaine” bursts into a jittery jangle; then marvel at the drums and drum machines ricocheting off one another, the harmonies that crisscross, and the stacks of guitar that rise between riff and hiss, subtle but essential layers that reveal themselves in time.
Every element of Alvvays leveled up in the long interim between albums: Riley is a classic dynamo of a drummer, with the power of a rock deity and the finesse of a jazz pedigree. Their roommate, in-demand bassist Blackwell, finds the center of a song and entrenches it. Keyboardist Kerri MacLellan joined Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley to write more this time, reinforcing the band’s collective quest to break patterns heard on their first two albums.
The results are beyond question: Blue Rev has more twists and surprises than Alvvays’ cumulative past, and the band seems to revel in these taken chances. This record is fun and often funny, from the hilarious reply-guy bash of “Very Online Guy” to the parodic grind of “Pomeranian Spinster.”
Alvvays’ self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in its early 20s, offered speculation about a distant future—marriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship. Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. Named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton, Blue Rev looks both back at that country past and forward at an uncertain world, reckoning with what we lose whenever we make a choice about what we want to become.
The spinster with her Pomeranians or Belinda with her babies? The kid fleeing Bristol by train or the loyalist stunned to see old friends return? “How do I gauge whether this is stasis or change?” Rankin sings during the first verse of the plangent and infectious “Easy on Your Own?” In that moment, she pulls the ties tight between past, present, and future to ask hard questions about who we’re going to become, and how. Sure, it arrives a few years later than expected, but the answer for Alvvays is actually simple: They’ve changed gradually, growing on Blue Rev into one of their generation’s most complete and riveting rock bands.
STAFF COMMENTS
Liam says: Isn't it good to have Alvvays back ey? Fourteen tracks of dreamy shoegaze-infused jangle-pop goodness, Alvvays' 'Blue Rev' further cements the Canadian outfit as modern indie darlings and deservedly so!TRACK LISTING
1 Pharmacist (2:04)
2 Easy On Your Own? (2:55)
3 After The Earthquake (3:05)
4 Tom Verlaine (3:26)
5 Pressed (2:10)
6 Many Mirrors (2:59)
7 Very Online Guy (2:22)
8 Velveteen (3:10)
9 Tile By Tile (2:58)
10 Pomeranian Spinster (3:25)
11 Belinda Says (2:45)
12 Bored In Bristol (3:00)
13 Lottery Noises (3:18)
14 Fourth Figure (1:20)
Martin Rev's fourth solo album See Me Ridin' was released on the New York label Reachout International Records (ROIR) in 1996. Received by the critics with amazement, it proved to be a watershed moment in his career. Martin Rev's vocals are as minimal as they are sentimental, wonderfully poetic like a latter-day Chet Baker perhaps, or Jonathan Richman. This solo album not only blindsided Rev's critics and fans alike, but also painted a personal, nostalgic portrait of his home, New York; fading out the noise and contradictions of the city to channel the romantic energy of the metropolis.
Martin Rev's fifth solo album - Strangeworld - was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grunlund and Mika Vainio's Sahko Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound. Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin, an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals. Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev's voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part.
Debut on vinyl LP for Mercury Rev’s 2006 soundtrack album, HELLO BLACKBIRD. At the time, V2 planned to release this on vinyl but the project never got beyond test pressings.
Strictly limited edition of 1,000 copies on marbled blue vinyl, with a printed inner sleeve.
Musically, HELLO BLACKBIRD allowed Mercury Rev to further expand the sonic soundscapes they were exploring with The Secret Migration, with classical and ambient styles (‘The Last Of The White Birds’ reinterpreted Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in Bb minor, Opus 35 (Marche Funebre)’).
The album was recorded at Six Hour Studios in Kingston, New York, in mid-2004 and the music was intended as the soundtrack for the 2005 feature film Bye Bye Blackbird, by French director and photographer Robinson Savary.
Bye Bye Blackbird was a tragic, compelling love story set in a turn-of-the-century travelling circus, with a stellar cast, including Derek Jacobi and James Thierre.
Strictly limited edition of 1,000 copies on marbled blue vinyl, with a printed inner sleeve.
Musically, HELLO BLACKBIRD allowed Mercury Rev to further expand the sonic soundscapes they were exploring with The Secret Migration, with classical and ambient styles (‘The Last Of The White Birds’ reinterpreted Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in Bb minor, Opus 35 (Marche Funebre)’).
The album was recorded at Six Hour Studios in Kingston, New York, in mid-2004 and the music was intended as the soundtrack for the 2005 feature film Bye Bye Blackbird, by French director and photographer Robinson Savary.
Bye Bye Blackbird was a tragic, compelling love story set in a turn-of-the-century travelling circus, with a stellar cast, including Derek Jacobi and James Thierre.
TRACK LISTING
SIDE ONE
1. BLACKBIRD’S CALL
2. ILLUMINATION BY STREET LAMP
3. WALTZ FOR ALICE
4. TRIAL BY WIRE
5. DAYDREAM FOR NINA
6. AUDITION SCENE SKETCH (SIMPLY BECAUSE)
7. THE WHITE BIRDS
8. JOSEF’S VISION
SIDE TWO
1. EYE OF THE BLACKBIRD (TRAVELING MUSIC II)
2. THE LAST OF THE WHITE BIRDS (MARCHE FUNÈBRE)
3. CINEMA THEME
4. FIRST FLIGHT OF THE WHITE BIRDS
5. THE CHIMPY WALTZ
6. DEMPSEY’S THEME
7. FANTASIA NO. 1
8. ROBERT Y ROBERTO
9. TRAVELING MUSIC
10. DEPARTED ANGELS
11. SIMPLY BECAUSE
Kykeon is the long-awaited third album from Italy’s finest shoegazing noise-rockers Rev Rev Rev, following on from their 2016 LP Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient. The band say of the new record: “Kykeon is about exploring the obscure. It’s a ritual descent into the underworld, but also a flight through the cold spaces amid the stars. There’s stripped-back song structures, trance-like drumming, fuzzy reverberated guitars, abrasive atonal sounds and tonnes of feedback.” Kicking off the album with a relentless torrent of noise is ‘Waiting For Gödel’ and ‘Clutching The Blade’: two cuts of blistering psychedelic noise-rock that take no prisoners.
The band say of the latter: “Clutching The Blade’ is a good snapshot of our sonic virulence. Among the new songs, it’s the one that truly conveys the energy of our live show. The song itself is about being trapped in the quicksand of a certain situation and the appalling feeling that the more you struggle, the faster you sink.” This sense of danger and losing control runs throughout the album, manifested perfectly in the claustrophobic noise-rock of ‘Sealand’ and ‘Egocandy’: primal and piercing, both tracks are dominated by screeching feedback and slabs of unforgiving fuzzed-out guitars that are more than capable of blowing both amplifiers and eardrums. Kykeon isn’t always quite such an intense affair though. Tracks like ‘Summer Clouds’ and ‘Adrift In The Chaosmos’ deal in a sublime Loveless-esque shoegaze sound; Laura Iacuzio’s shadowy, ethereal vocals emerging through all-consuming walls-of-noise. Then there’s the murky, ritualistic drone-rock found on ‘Gate Of The Dark Female’ and ‘One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another’ which keep hold of the band’s trademark fuzz onslaughts but gear them more towards explorations into repetition and texture. ‘One Illusion…’, especially, is bolstered by modular synths, DIY guitar pedals built by guitarist Sebastian Lugli and the use of a tanpura, a stringed drone instrument originating from India. Their finest work yet, Kykeon proves that Rev Rev Rev – based in Modena, Italy – are without a doubt one of the finest bands today to be carrying the torch for shoegazers far and wide, old and new – praise that’s already been justly lauded on them countless times since they formed back in 2013
The band say of the latter: “Clutching The Blade’ is a good snapshot of our sonic virulence. Among the new songs, it’s the one that truly conveys the energy of our live show. The song itself is about being trapped in the quicksand of a certain situation and the appalling feeling that the more you struggle, the faster you sink.” This sense of danger and losing control runs throughout the album, manifested perfectly in the claustrophobic noise-rock of ‘Sealand’ and ‘Egocandy’: primal and piercing, both tracks are dominated by screeching feedback and slabs of unforgiving fuzzed-out guitars that are more than capable of blowing both amplifiers and eardrums. Kykeon isn’t always quite such an intense affair though. Tracks like ‘Summer Clouds’ and ‘Adrift In The Chaosmos’ deal in a sublime Loveless-esque shoegaze sound; Laura Iacuzio’s shadowy, ethereal vocals emerging through all-consuming walls-of-noise. Then there’s the murky, ritualistic drone-rock found on ‘Gate Of The Dark Female’ and ‘One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another’ which keep hold of the band’s trademark fuzz onslaughts but gear them more towards explorations into repetition and texture. ‘One Illusion…’, especially, is bolstered by modular synths, DIY guitar pedals built by guitarist Sebastian Lugli and the use of a tanpura, a stringed drone instrument originating from India. Their finest work yet, Kykeon proves that Rev Rev Rev – based in Modena, Italy – are without a doubt one of the finest bands today to be carrying the torch for shoegazers far and wide, old and new – praise that’s already been justly lauded on them countless times since they formed back in 2013
TRACK LISTING
1 Waiting For Gödel
2 Clutching The Blade
3 3 Not 3
4 Gate Of The Dark Female
5 One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another
6 Egocandy
7 Sealand
8 Adrift In The Chaosmos
9 Summer Clouds
10 Cyclopes
11 Spots On A Dice
Martin Rev is best known as one half of the seminal duo Suicide (with Alan Vega). Listening to his solo albums, it becomes clear that Rev was responsible for the group’s music. Suicide mirrored the reductive and radical traits of the contemp- oraneous punk scene that was in the process of emerging, but their electronic, minimalist form of language was so unique, so innovative, that they would become a major influence on the likes of Daft Punk, Air and Aphex Twin. Alongside his work with Suicide, Martin Rev continued as a solo artist, releasing his eponymous debut album in 1980 on New York’s Infidelity label. Rev’s early solo excursions can be traced back to the original ideas which can be found – in modified form – in Suicide songs: as instrumental versions which have been texturally enriched, like a familiar figure which has nevertheless taken on a completely new existence.
Clouds of Glory
His second solo effort, was released on the French label New Rose in 1985, although the recordings on Clouds Of Glory actually dated back to the earlier part of the decade, following on from the Suicide sessions for the duo’s second album. Martin Rev remembers: “Clouds of Glory was produced from visual and musical sketches I had in mind which then coincidedwith an invitation by Marty Thau, previously Suicide’s manager, to take advantage of studio time he had accumulated from other projects. The essence of my ideas was then realized in the studio. Clouds was started in 1981 and completed in 1984 when additionalstudio time was made possible to complete it, based on the offer by New Rose Records.” In spite of Clouds Of Glory having been recorded with the sameequipment as the Alan Vega / Martin Rev Suicide album, it occupies a completely different space, evoking the solemnity of religious music through its underlying meditative tone. “I look now upon the album as part of a personal journey into the frontier of music; a process which is never ending in its revealing of possibilities to satisfy my musical aspirations.”
Clouds of Glory
His second solo effort, was released on the French label New Rose in 1985, although the recordings on Clouds Of Glory actually dated back to the earlier part of the decade, following on from the Suicide sessions for the duo’s second album. Martin Rev remembers: “Clouds of Glory was produced from visual and musical sketches I had in mind which then coincidedwith an invitation by Marty Thau, previously Suicide’s manager, to take advantage of studio time he had accumulated from other projects. The essence of my ideas was then realized in the studio. Clouds was started in 1981 and completed in 1984 when additionalstudio time was made possible to complete it, based on the offer by New Rose Records.” In spite of Clouds Of Glory having been recorded with the sameequipment as the Alan Vega / Martin Rev Suicide album, it occupies a completely different space, evoking the solemnity of religious music through its underlying meditative tone. “I look now upon the album as part of a personal journey into the frontier of music; a process which is never ending in its revealing of possibilities to satisfy my musical aspirations.”
TRACK LISTING
1 Rocking Horse (5:45)
2 Parade (6:45)
3 Whisper (4:04)
4 Rodeo (6:37)
5 Metatron (6:25)
6 Clouds Of Glory (6:22)
Martin Rev is best known as one half of the seminal duo Suicide (with Alan Vega). Listening to his solo albums, it becomes clear that Rev was responsible for the group’s music. Suicide mirrored the reductive and radical traits of the contemp- oraneous punk scene that was in the process of emerging, but their electronic, minimalist form of language was so unique, so innovative, that they would become a major influence on the likes of Daft Punk, Air and Aphex Twin. Alongside his work with Suicide, Martin Rev continued as a solo artist, releasing his eponymous debut album in 1980 on New York’s Infidelity label. Rev’s early solo excursions can be traced back to the original ideas which can be found – in modified form – in Suicide songs: as instrumental versions which have been texturally enriched, like a familiar figure which has nevertheless taken on a completely new existence.
Cheyenne
Although it was not released until 1991, Martin Rev’s third solo album features a wealth of material from the year 1980. For “Cheyenne”, Rev created instrumental versions of many of the tracks which had formed the basis of the second Suicide LP entitled “Alan Vega / Martin Rev”. The sphere of Martin Rev’s influence and the relevance of his music may well be related to the fact that he was one of the first artists who succeeded in grasping the abstraction of electronic music, infusing it with a sense of immediacy built on raw energy. Whilst the likes of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Kraftwerk were busy digging in the electronic music garden, Martin Rev found inspiration in the streets of New York. Rev’s music is informed by characteristic influences of the city, a place where doo-wop harmonies intermingle with the hiss and hum of the metropolis, dissolving into a collage of noise. So it is that dreamy, chiming melodies blur into ominous whirrs and drones emanating from rhythm machines and layers of distorted synthesizer. This polarity between convergence and alienation describes something deeply American, as reflected in the track names and the cover image of a rodeo rider: “The idea came from the way the tracks sounded as instrumentals. They took on a different visually descriptive dimension, even more so in combination. The visualization was an immediate sound- scape of the American landscape. That’s where the titles and cover came from.” Many of the pieces found on Cheyenne can be traced back to the sessions for the second Suicide album Alan Vega / Martin Rev (1980) which was produced by Ric Ocasek, singer for The Cars. Almost a decade passed before Martin Rev got around to editing and developing the material. “Most of the album was recorded in 1980, but the remaining few tracks from 1988 into the early 90’s. The 80’s tracks all went under a concerted editing process, to make them work for me even better as instrumentals. I didn’t get around to that until there was an offer to release them, which was in the early 90’s as well.” Indeed, Cheyenne plays out like a rural, yet intense road movie, crossing a landscape rich in beauty and contradictions.
Cheyenne
Although it was not released until 1991, Martin Rev’s third solo album features a wealth of material from the year 1980. For “Cheyenne”, Rev created instrumental versions of many of the tracks which had formed the basis of the second Suicide LP entitled “Alan Vega / Martin Rev”. The sphere of Martin Rev’s influence and the relevance of his music may well be related to the fact that he was one of the first artists who succeeded in grasping the abstraction of electronic music, infusing it with a sense of immediacy built on raw energy. Whilst the likes of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Kraftwerk were busy digging in the electronic music garden, Martin Rev found inspiration in the streets of New York. Rev’s music is informed by characteristic influences of the city, a place where doo-wop harmonies intermingle with the hiss and hum of the metropolis, dissolving into a collage of noise. So it is that dreamy, chiming melodies blur into ominous whirrs and drones emanating from rhythm machines and layers of distorted synthesizer. This polarity between convergence and alienation describes something deeply American, as reflected in the track names and the cover image of a rodeo rider: “The idea came from the way the tracks sounded as instrumentals. They took on a different visually descriptive dimension, even more so in combination. The visualization was an immediate sound- scape of the American landscape. That’s where the titles and cover came from.” Many of the pieces found on Cheyenne can be traced back to the sessions for the second Suicide album Alan Vega / Martin Rev (1980) which was produced by Ric Ocasek, singer for The Cars. Almost a decade passed before Martin Rev got around to editing and developing the material. “Most of the album was recorded in 1980, but the remaining few tracks from 1988 into the early 90’s. The 80’s tracks all went under a concerted editing process, to make them work for me even better as instrumentals. I didn’t get around to that until there was an offer to release them, which was in the early 90’s as well.” Indeed, Cheyenne plays out like a rural, yet intense road movie, crossing a landscape rich in beauty and contradictions.
TRACK LISTING
1 Wings Of The Wind (7:58)
2 Red Sierra (6:36)
3 Dakota (2:58)
4 Cheyenne (3:09)
5 River Of Tears (3:49)
6 Buckeye (2:15)
7 Little Rock (7:00)
8 Prairie Star (2:27)
9 Mustang (2:40)
This is the debut album from Scottish quartet Rev Magnetic, who meld elements of R&B, shoegaze and post rock into their singular, blissfully spacial dream pop. Called ‘Versus Universe’, the album reflects a cosmos of transformative sound references ranging from My Bloody Valentine to Teebs, Lemmy-era Hawkwind to ABBA and Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky into its 11 otherworldly tracks. While touring the world as guest multi-instrumentalist with Mogwai, Luke (Long Fin Killie, Bows, Music A.M. Jomi Massage) used the downtime to sketch a bunch of songs. Once home, he recorded them with the help of Audrey Bizouerne ((Gift Horse) bass, Sam Leighton (drums) and Gregor Emond (guitar), who played with Luke in Hynd.
TRACK LISTING
1. Versus Universe
2. At The Mercy Of Fabulous Thoughts
3. Daughter Of Astronauts
4. Sunny Windy Winter Morning (Rainbows Spanning The Valley)
5. Schoenberg In America
6. Woodland Sorority Carwash
7. Yonder (Là-haut)
8. A Minotaur's Mass
9. Gloaming
10. It Shoulda Been You
11. Palaces
Rock Action announce the first release on the label by Rev Magnetic.
Combining elements of dream pop, R&B, shoegaze and post rock, Rev Magnetic revolves around the core of musician and author Luke Sutherland, a long-time Mogwai collaborator on stage and on record.
‘Gloaming’, with its celestial tale of disappearing love, provides a snapshot of the band’s forthcoming debut album which, with a cosmos of transformative sound references ranging from My Bloody Valentine to Teebs, Lemmy-era Hawkwind to ABBA and Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky, is due for release later in the year.
Combining elements of dream pop, R&B, shoegaze and post rock, Rev Magnetic revolves around the core of musician and author Luke Sutherland, a long-time Mogwai collaborator on stage and on record.
‘Gloaming’, with its celestial tale of disappearing love, provides a snapshot of the band’s forthcoming debut album which, with a cosmos of transformative sound references ranging from My Bloody Valentine to Teebs, Lemmy-era Hawkwind to ABBA and Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky, is due for release later in the year.
TRACK LISTING
Gloaming
Firmament Gear
Demolition 9 is New York electronic music pioneer Martin Rev’s ninth solo album, and first new material since 2009. Comprised of 34 wildly divergent vignettes – only one of which reaches three minutes in length – he describes it as autobiographical “yearning for joy and the unattainable perfection of the artistic ideal.” The record spans a lifetime’s worth of moods and musings, encompassing fragments of Rev’s varied passions accrued across his nearly half-century long career. From violent percussion experiments to neo-classical reveries to noir-sleaze abstractions and beyond, Demolition 9 offers a radically non-linear spelunk through the dreams and distractions of one of the 20th century’s most influential sonic iconoclasts.
TRACK LISTING
1 Stickball
2 Salve Dominus
3 Deus
4 Pace
5 My Street
6 T'Amo
7 Into The Blue
8 Requiem
9 Now
10 Blayboy
11 In Our Name
12 Never Mind
13 Vision Of Mari
14 Warning
15 Salvame
16 Dies Irae
17 RBL
18 Venitas
19 Stretch
20 Creation
21 Toi
22 Pièta
23 It's Time
24 Tacha's Toy
25 Back To Philly
26 Stelle
27 Inside Out
28 Beatus
29 Tuba
30 Rêve
31 Concrete
32 She
33 Darling
34 Excelsis
As Mercury Rev began recording their eighth studio album in autumn 2013, when asked what people could expect, co-pilot Grasshopper responded, “Steel Resonator Mandolin. Timpani. Sleigh Bells. All sorts of electric guitars…..” He subsequently added, “It is the best stuff we have done in a long, long time. Gonna be big sounding!”
Two years on, The Light In You more than lives up to its billing. The record is filled with wondrous and voluminous kaleidoscopic detail, but also intimate moments of calm, and altogether stands up to the very best that this notable band of maverick explorers has ever created. Its ecstatic highs and shivery comedowns also reflect a particularly turbulent era in the lives of Grasshopper and fellow co-founder Jonathan Donahue, of calamities both personal and physical, but also rebirths and real births (Grasshopper became a father for the first time in 2014). There's a reason for the seven-year gap since the band's last album, Snowflake Midnight.
“It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everything you think is solid turns molten,” explains Jonathan. “But also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.”
As well as The Light In You being the first Mercury Rev album with Bella Union, it’s also the first with only Jonathan and Grasshopper at the controls, as scheduling conflicts and travel between the Catskills and Dave Fridmann's Tarbox studio became too great to overcome. On The Light In You, Jonathan and Grasshopper decided they were best served being based at home in the Catskills for once. Surrounded by longtime friends such as engineer Scott Petito and bassist Anthony Molina, Jonathan and Grasshopper quickly found their stride recording themselves in their own basement studio as well as venturing out into the daylight to record tracks at some of their old haunts like NRS and White Light Studios. The two even found time to arrange backing vocal harmonies and record with Ken Stringfellow at his studio Son du Blé studios in Paris.
Yet from its title down, the album clearly reflects the core relationship between Jonathan and Grasshopper, best friends since they were teenagers, who accompanied each other through the musical changes, band fractures and exulted breakthroughs that has marked Mercury Rev’s career since they emerged with the extraordinary Yerself Is Steam in 1991.
“You can go as deep as you want with the title, on a metaphorical, spiritual level, or just poetic license,” Jonathan suggests. “It’s the beacon that shines and allows us to see ourselves – and then there’s the music between Grasshopper and I, which is how we reflect each other. The arc of the album, lyrically, is someone who’s gone through an incredible period of turbulence, sadness and uncertainty, and as the album progresses, a light appears on the water.”
The album’s track-listing follows a similar trajectory, from the opening slow-build cascade of ‘The Queen Of Swans’, through the epic lonely beauty of ‘Central Park East’ and the album’s half-way peak between ‘Emotional Freefall’ and ‘Are You Ready’ before the closing sequence, with the exhilarating pop beacons of ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Rainy Day Record’ sandwiching the more tranquil ‘Moth Light’. The light is reflected both by the album’s brilliantine colours and imagery drawn largely from the elements and the seasons, creating a world as only Mercury Rev know how. “It’s like taking a drug, but not actually taking a drug,” Grasshopper reckons. “Just sit back and enter and immerse yourself.”
Since Snowflake Midnight, Jonathan and Grasshopper have stayed productive, for example with their improvised collective, Mercury Rev's Cinematic Sound Tettix BrainWave Concerto Experiment at John Zorn's club in NYC, creating live soundtracks to favourite films at various junctures across Europe (most recently in London as part of Swans’ Mouth To Mouth festival in 2014). There were also occasional festival shows such as headlining 2014’s Green Man festival to celebrate the deluxe version of 1998 opus Deserter’s Songs.
“Playing tracks again from Deserter’s Songs helped us look at where we’ve been, and where we were going,” says Grasshopper. “Though by no means did we want to make Deserter’s Songs Two, we did feel we had some loose ends to tie up.”As Grasshopper once commented about Deserter’s Songs, “It’s special because that was the one that brought us back from the brink.” The Light In You is special for that very same reason.
Two years on, The Light In You more than lives up to its billing. The record is filled with wondrous and voluminous kaleidoscopic detail, but also intimate moments of calm, and altogether stands up to the very best that this notable band of maverick explorers has ever created. Its ecstatic highs and shivery comedowns also reflect a particularly turbulent era in the lives of Grasshopper and fellow co-founder Jonathan Donahue, of calamities both personal and physical, but also rebirths and real births (Grasshopper became a father for the first time in 2014). There's a reason for the seven-year gap since the band's last album, Snowflake Midnight.
“It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everything you think is solid turns molten,” explains Jonathan. “But also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.”
As well as The Light In You being the first Mercury Rev album with Bella Union, it’s also the first with only Jonathan and Grasshopper at the controls, as scheduling conflicts and travel between the Catskills and Dave Fridmann's Tarbox studio became too great to overcome. On The Light In You, Jonathan and Grasshopper decided they were best served being based at home in the Catskills for once. Surrounded by longtime friends such as engineer Scott Petito and bassist Anthony Molina, Jonathan and Grasshopper quickly found their stride recording themselves in their own basement studio as well as venturing out into the daylight to record tracks at some of their old haunts like NRS and White Light Studios. The two even found time to arrange backing vocal harmonies and record with Ken Stringfellow at his studio Son du Blé studios in Paris.
Yet from its title down, the album clearly reflects the core relationship between Jonathan and Grasshopper, best friends since they were teenagers, who accompanied each other through the musical changes, band fractures and exulted breakthroughs that has marked Mercury Rev’s career since they emerged with the extraordinary Yerself Is Steam in 1991.
“You can go as deep as you want with the title, on a metaphorical, spiritual level, or just poetic license,” Jonathan suggests. “It’s the beacon that shines and allows us to see ourselves – and then there’s the music between Grasshopper and I, which is how we reflect each other. The arc of the album, lyrically, is someone who’s gone through an incredible period of turbulence, sadness and uncertainty, and as the album progresses, a light appears on the water.”
The album’s track-listing follows a similar trajectory, from the opening slow-build cascade of ‘The Queen Of Swans’, through the epic lonely beauty of ‘Central Park East’ and the album’s half-way peak between ‘Emotional Freefall’ and ‘Are You Ready’ before the closing sequence, with the exhilarating pop beacons of ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Rainy Day Record’ sandwiching the more tranquil ‘Moth Light’. The light is reflected both by the album’s brilliantine colours and imagery drawn largely from the elements and the seasons, creating a world as only Mercury Rev know how. “It’s like taking a drug, but not actually taking a drug,” Grasshopper reckons. “Just sit back and enter and immerse yourself.”
Since Snowflake Midnight, Jonathan and Grasshopper have stayed productive, for example with their improvised collective, Mercury Rev's Cinematic Sound Tettix BrainWave Concerto Experiment at John Zorn's club in NYC, creating live soundtracks to favourite films at various junctures across Europe (most recently in London as part of Swans’ Mouth To Mouth festival in 2014). There were also occasional festival shows such as headlining 2014’s Green Man festival to celebrate the deluxe version of 1998 opus Deserter’s Songs.
“Playing tracks again from Deserter’s Songs helped us look at where we’ve been, and where we were going,” says Grasshopper. “Though by no means did we want to make Deserter’s Songs Two, we did feel we had some loose ends to tie up.”As Grasshopper once commented about Deserter’s Songs, “It’s special because that was the one that brought us back from the brink.” The Light In You is special for that very same reason.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: Mercury Rev bin the glacial electronics and return to splendor with the sweeping, multi-layered, enchanted sounds of their classic Deserter Songs period.TRACK LISTING
The Queen Of Swans
Amelie
You've Gone With So Little For So Long
Central Park East
Emotional Freefall
Coming Up For Air
Autumn's In The Air
Are You Ready?
Sunflower
Moth Light
Rainy Day Record