Mercury Rev

2634人收藏

风格: #独立摇滚　#新迷幻　#梦幻流行
地区: United States of America 美国

艺人介绍

Mercury Rev在80年代末期成立于Buffalo，乐队如今的事业中囊括了他们自己漫长而艰难的一番奋斗。Mercury Rev以主音兼原声吉他手Jonathan Donahue、吉他手Grasshopper以及贝斯手Dave Fridmann为核心，在乐队新专辑“All Is Dream”中Mercury Rev中还加入了新成员鼓手兼钢琴——纽约人Jeff Mercel。

Mercury Rev的第一张录音一开始纯粹是为乐队成员朋友们拍摄的实验电影做的原声，David Baker（配和声）、Suzanne Thorpe（演奏笛子）以及Jimy Chambers（敲击）加入了这个松散的团体，并最终在纽约的Fredonia小录音棚里趁休息时间完成了录制小样的工作。而这张小样也不经意间让英国的Jungle/Mint公司相中了Mercury Rev，并联系Donahue关于为乐队做主唱的事宜。

Mercury Rev这个名字的来源说法多样，有的说来自特兰夕法尼亚的一个芭蕾舞演员，有的说是一个密封的安培计，还有一辆马力强劲的汽车之说。Mercury Rev经过重组之后发行了乐队的第一张专辑“Yerself Is Steam”，专辑中扭曲失真的艺术流行音乐诗篇——如“Chasing a Bee”，“Coney Island Cyclone”以及“Frittering”都是相当耀眼的作品。1991年“Yerself Is Steam”的发行博得了各方喝彩。一年后乐队接着推出了单曲碟“Car Wash Hair”，在这种唱片中Mercury Rev再次以擅于变化的音乐才能确立了自己独一无二的地位，但乐队成员之间的矛盾和演出安排的不断调整一时间使得Mercury Rev即将解散的谣言肆起。然而Mercury Rev在1993年发行了“Boces”，让谣言不功自破，这张唱片也再次继承了乐队将洁净的流行乐元素与狂热的噪音结合的音乐风格。尽管这张唱片第二年里登上了全英销量榜前50的位置，但由于音乐上的分歧促使固执的David Baker离开了Mercury Rev，而由于Dave Fridmann决定集中于音效以及制作，这都让Mercury Rev举行巡回演出的计划搁浅。

Mercury Rev于1995年发行了“See You On The Other Side”，这张动人的作品为乐队多年的漂泊不定划下了句号。尽管评论界对专辑“Everlasting Arm”与“Racing the Tide”中爵士流行元素的出色结合感到惊叹不已，但乐队内部由于个人问题出现骚动，再次让Mercury Rev处于一个尴尬的境地。Donahue和Grasshopper一起远行去了纽约州的Catskill Mountains，以躲避开不利局面，他们还带了两位新成员——（键盘手）和Jeff Mercel，而Chambers和Thorpe由于无法应对而从此离开了Mercury Rev。

Mercury Rev的新专辑“All Is Dream”录制于2000年末到2001年初的时间里，新专辑中那具有电影般的夸张效果再次扩充了Mercury Rev的音乐疆界，从“The Dark Is Rising”，“Tides of the Moon”和“Nite and Fog”这些欢乐的歌曲中可以听出Mercury Rev的音乐更为成熟同时也更富表现力，同时推动着Mercury Rev不断向更完美的方向前进着。

Not so much a band as a long, strange trip, the chaotic avant pop pranksters Mercury Rev formed in Buffalo, NY, in the late 80s. Originally comprised of vocalist David Baker, vocalist/silver pickup guitarist Jonathan Donahue, guitar shaper/single-exhaust clarinetist Grasshopper (born Sean Mackowiak), rooster-tail bass flutist Suzanne Thorpe, bass explorer Dave Fridmann, and mojo stick drummer Jimy Chambers, the sextet — always rife with personality conflicts — interacted with one another infrequently, and their first recordings evolved simply as a means of creating soundtracks for the members experimental student films as well as for Howard Nelsons Lite-Brite and Marco Foggs Sugardaddy Sea.

Encouraged to further their music by academic mentor Tony Conrad — a minimalist composer and multimedia artist who had performed with John Cale, La Monte Young, and Faust — the loosely connected aggregate dubbed Mercury Rev (a name whose inspiration was variously attributed to an imaginary Russian ballet dancer, a sharp rise in temperature, or a revved-up auto) began to emerge, and eventually the group recorded a demo onto a reel of 35mm magnetic film. At the same time, Donahue was working as a concert promoter and scheduled a Butthole Surfers gig; after the show, he befriended the support act, Oklahomas likeminded Flaming Lips, and soon joined the tour as a guitar technician. Ultimately, Donahue — under the alias Dingus — became the Lips lead guitarist, and with them recorded 1990s In a Priest Driven Ambulance, an album produced by Fridmann.

With Mercury Rev effectively in limbo and its members scattered across the country, their demo tape somehow made its way to the British offices of the Rough Trade label, which contacted Baker about signing the group. Soon, the band convened to record their debut, Yerself Is Steam, an LP cut at the same time Donahue and Fridmann were also working on the Flaming Lips major-label bow, Hit to Death in the Future Head. A brilliantly melodic and free-form set highlighted by distorted art pop epics like Chasing a Bee, Coney Island Cyclone, and Frittering, Yerself Is Steam was issued to widespread acclaim in 1991; however, within weeks of the LPs release Rough Trades American branch declared bankruptcy, aborting any hopes of proper distribution or promotion.

Still, a British tour followed, and not without incident; the performances, mounted without any practice sessions, constantly teetered on the brink of disintegration — set lists were nonexistent, and Baker frequently hopped off the stage (in midsong, no less) to grab a drink. Additionally, the group was reportedly banned from air travel after Donahue attempted to gouge out Grasshoppers eye with a spoon in mid-flight. Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; the members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. Finally, Sony signed the group and reissued Yerself Is Steam along with an extra track, the sublime single Car Wash Hair (recorded with the aid of Lunas Dean Wareham after Fridmann — much to his bandmates dismay — spent all of their advance money to fund a Bermuda vacation package for his mother).

Amid considerable tension, Mercury Rev set up studio space in a barn to craft their second album; after completing the principal recording sessions, the group collected samples from sites as far-ranging as Times Square and NASAs Cape Canaveral to flesh out the musics dense, prismatic sound. Following the release of the stunning 1993 LP, dubbed Boces in honor of an upstate New York school for children, Mercury Rev again toured, even playing the second stage at Lollapalooza; ultimately, the band was kicked off the bill during the festivals Denver stop due to excessive noise — the electricity to the stage was cut off in mid-performance, and concert security removed their soundman in a headlock. Additionally, an elaborate video for the single Something for Joey was shot with the notorious porn star Ron Jeremy, but the clips suggestive space-age sexcapades and visual double-entendres made mainstream airplay a moot point.

After relations soured to the point where Baker was traveling to gigs apart from his bandmates, he was dismissed from Mercury Revs ranks; under the name Shady, he returned in 1994 with World, an excellent solo LP recorded with luminaries from the Boo Radleys, Rollerskate Skinny, and St. Johnny. With their newly perfected Tettix Wave Accumulator (patent pending) in tow, the remaining quintet returned to the studio to record 1995s See You on the Other Side, a beautiful, shimmering effort that found the group — newly freed of Bakers darker impulses — exploring increasingly diverse stylistic territory with newfound emotional depth. Under the name Harmony Rockets, Mercury Rev also issued 1995s Paralyzed Mind of the Archangel Void, a 40-minute improvisational excursion into ambient noise.

The lovely Deserters Songs followed in the fall of 1998, and the albums appearance on dozens of best-of lists sparked a renaissance of sorts for Mercury Rev, especially in England. For their next album, the band was slated to work with Jack Nitzsche — famous for his arrangements on many classics of the Phil Spector canon — until Nitzsche passed away a week before recording began. Expanding on the dramatic blueprint of Deserters Songs (in a way Nitzsche would surely have been proud of), Mercury Rev released All Is Dream on September 11, 2001. Secret Migration arrived in 2005; reflecting the bands popularity in the U.K., it was released there that winter and in the U.S. that spring. Late 2006/early 2007 was a busy time for the band, with the best-of Essential: Stillness Breathes 1991-2006, the soundtrack Hello Blackbird, and the mix album Back to Mine all arriving at that time.

Mercury Rev

艺人介绍

热门评论

最新简评（共81条）