{"product_id":"mercury-rev-born-horses","title":"Mercury Rev- Born Horses (Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn upstate New York, deep in the seam between the Catskills mountains and the Hudson Valley, a richly\r\nswelling, spellbound sound emerges, eddying and flowing like the local Esopus Creek, or in the\r\nslipstream of the grander Hudson river, carrying the flotsam and jetsam of our hopes, dreams, fears. A\r\nsound composed of organic and electronic; guitars, keys, brass, strings, woodwind, drums - and a voice\r\nof incantations, tapping streams of consciousness that similarly eddy and flow.\r\nSpiritually, literally, psycho-geographically: where else does Mercury Rev's ninth album Born Horses\r\nspring from? This cascade of gleaming, glistening psych-jazz-folk-baroque-ambient quest that searches\r\nit's soul but can never truly know the answer? A sound and vision linked to their exalted past whilst quite\r\nunlike anything they have created before?\r\nThe answer is somewhere between the homes of founder members Jonathan Donahue (the hamlet of Mt\r\nTremper) and Grasshopper (the town of Kingston), in their veins and brains of their now-legendary\r\ntapping of musical cosmology, and the vital presence of new permanent member Marion Genser (keys),\r\nplus long-term ally Jesse Chandler (keys) and guests Jeff Lipstein (drums), Martin Keith (double bass)\r\nand Jim Burgess (trumpet). A place that feeds off the levitating mood of their last album, 2019's\r\nexpansive tribute Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited, and the instrumental psych explorations\r\nunder the names of Harmony Rockets and Mercury Rev's Clear Light Ensemble, and the spiritual\r\nguidance of avant-garde artist Tony Conrad and Beat poet Robert Creeley, to whom Born Horses is\r\ndedicated.\r\nBorn Horses opens with 'Mood Swings'. A trumpet, evoking mariachi and the windswept terrain of the\r\ndesert prairie, opens up to a dynamic panorama of sound, wandering through and enveloping Jonathan's\r\nintimate recitation, conflating memories and confessions of feelings trapped and unwrapped: \"My mood\r\nswings come and go as they like \/ rebellious fickle teenagers, unable to decide.\" It establishes Born\r\nHorses' tone of vulnerability and awe, and a little frisson of fear, testifying to the frailty of human\r\nexperience, buffeted by the currents all around us. The flightiness of feelings is further explored by the\r\nmetaphor of a bird, most clearly in 'Bird Of No Address' and the album's pulsating finale 'There Has\r\nAlways Been A Bird In Me'.\r\nThe album title, named after the majestically rippling sixth track 'Born Horses', was chosen because it's\r\nwords resonate through the entire record, encompassing the idea of flight (\"I dreamed we were born\r\nhorses waiting for wings\") and the phrase \"You and I\" that appears at different junctures on the album.\r\nThis is not the concept of two separate people, but two parts of one self.\r\nThe concept of Born Horses began pre-pandemic, and then once Mercury Rev were allowed to tour and\r\nrecord again, Marion Genser moved over from her native Austria to join Jonathan in the Catskills, and\r\nMercury Rev in full flight. A classically-trained painter as well as a musician, Marion has become an\r\ninvaluable addition to the Rev chemical compound.\r\nMore inspiration was provided by the spirits of Tony Conrad and Robert Creeley, acolytes of progressive\r\nthought and action who both taught at the University at Buffalo when Jonathan and Grasshopper were\r\nstudents. Amongst other credentials, Conrad was an associate of John Cale and The Velvet\r\nUnderground, Creeley an associate of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and the Black Mountain poets. Gatefold LP w\/ a 4-page booklet and inner sleeve\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTrack List\u003c\/p\u003e\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMood Swings\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Ancient Love\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Your Hammer My Heart\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Patterns\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e A Bird Of No Address\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Born Horses\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Everything I Thought I Had Lost\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e There’s Always Been A Bird In\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ol\u003e \u003cp\u003eShop online 24\/7 at \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/shop.darksiderecords.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"\u003eDarkside Records\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFollow us on \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/darksiderecordspk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"\u003eInstagram\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"AEC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45551042429149,"sku":"5065019688118","price":37.0,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0551\/1056\/6043\/files\/4347053-3189250.jpg?v=1727166660","url":"https:\/\/shop.darksiderecords.com\/ms-sg\/products\/mercury-rev-born-horses","provider":"Darkside Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}