New York experimental rockers Mercury Rev have been busting down the doorways of style and magnificence for many years. Bringing collectively a potent mixture of rock, electronica, noise, and lo-fi improvisation to their music, the band has additionally dabbled in nation, new wave, ambient, and psychedelia throughout their three-decade-long profession.
Whereas sitting down with The Line of Greatest Match, band members Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper have been joyful to share their numerous array of influences. Everybody from Pharoah Sanders and Billie Vacation to Suicide and Iggy Pop received nods, however a particular place on the listing was saved for fellow New York art-rockers The Velvet Underground.
“I grew up in a small city in Western New York, with quite a lot of farmland and oldie’s radio, however my Uncle was my contact on the surface and he despatched me The Velvet Underground file, which got here in the identical field as Pharoah Saunders after I was within the eighth Grade,” Grasshopper defined.
When it was time to choose only one track, it was narrowed all the way down to a basic observe. “‘All Tomorrow’s Events’ is so otherworldly, it’s surprising in its modernity and otherworldliness, the rollicking piano, the primal drums, Nico’s singing and the guitars increase,” Grasshopper continues. “Even after I hear it now, it simply appears so recent, it feels prefer it’s the primary time I’ve heard it, the exhilaration of it.”
“It’s a kind of songs that’s simply timeless,” he provides. “Though it’s fifty years outdated it sounds prefer it might have been completed yesterday, musically and the lyrics as effectively – ‘What costume shall the poor lady put on / To all tomorrow’s events?’ – that concept of adolescence, that you just’re going to a celebration and also you’re attempting to determine what to put on, what’s going to occur, who you’re going to satisfy there and what you’re going to be taught.”
“I simply love the piano that John Cale performs, I feel it comes out of the world of the New York minimalism of La Monte Younger, Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, minimal piano that simply retains looping and rollicking alongside,” he concludes. “And the impression of the sound, that rollicking piano with the primal beat of Moe Tucker, it simply steamrolls by relentlessly, it’s simply lovely.”
Try ‘All Tomorrow’s Events’ down under.
