Mercury Rev

Mercury Rev began life as avant-pop pranksters before maturing into architects of rootsy, majestic psych-pop, functioning less as a conventional group than as an extended, unpredictable odyssey. Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper have guided the ensemble’s singular fusion of shoegaze, noise pop, psychedelic textures, and experimental approaches, which first surfaced on the 1991 release Yerself Is Steam and the 1993 follow-up Boces, both of which hinted at the wider scope the band would claim later in the decade. Lineup shifts prompted an expansion of musical boundaries; the 1995 album See You on the Other Side introduced daring free-jazz passages alongside lullaby-like melodies that produced striking outcomes. Although critical praise arrived early, commercial breakthrough came only with 1998’s Deserter’s Songs, whose intimate songwriting offered a distinctive reinterpretation of Americana. Further evolution followed on the 2008 electronic effort Snowflake Midnight, while 2019’s Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited paid tribute to an overlooked classic and 2024’s Born Horses returned to the band’s characteristic blend of emotional depth and sonic exploration.

The group coalesced within the experimental art and music community at the State University of New York at Buffalo during the late ’80s, initially comprising vocalist David Baker, vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Donahue, guitarist/clarinetist Grasshopper (born Sean Mackowiak), flutist Suzanne Thorpe, bassist Dave Fridmann, and drummer Jimy Chambers. Grasshopper’s childhood clarinet studies fostered admiration for jazz figures John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis; upon taking up guitar he absorbed inspiration from Neil Young, the Allman Brothers, Sterling Morrison of the Velvet Underground, and Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd of Television. After performing with Buffalo outfits the People’s Front and Sunny in Chernobyl in the early ’80s, Grasshopper joined Shady Crady—an avant-garde ensemble that also counted Donahue among its members—on bass while completing a B.A. in the university’s Media Studies program.

By 1989 Shady Crady had transformed into Mercury Rev, a name variously credited to an imaginary Russian ballet dancer, a sudden temperature spike, or a revved-up engine, with Grasshopper moving to guitar. The band’s first recordings consisted of improvised scores for television nature documentaries and student films. At the urging of Grasshopper’s academic mentor, minimalist composer and multimedia artist Tony Conrad, the musicians captured a demo on 35mm magnetic film. Donahue, then working as a concert promoter, booked a Butthole Surfers appearance; afterward he befriended support act the Flaming Lips from Oklahoma and soon served as their guitar technician on tour. Under the pseudonym “Dingus,” Donahue became the Lips’ lead guitarist, appearing on 1990’s In a Priest Driven Ambulance, which Fridmann helped produce.

Although Mercury Rev’s members were dispersed nationwide, the demo reached Rough Trade Records’ British offices, prompting contact with Baker regarding a contract. The group reconvened to cut its debut, Yerself Is Steam, concurrently with Donahue and Fridmann’s work on the Flaming Lips’ major-label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head. Once the sessions ended, Donahue departed the Flaming Lips to focus on Mercury Rev. Issued in May 1991, Yerself Is Steam earned widespread acclaim for its melodic yet free-form art-pop epics, yet Rough Trade’s American division filed for bankruptcy weeks later, curtailing distribution and promotion. The band nevertheless toured the U.K.—London marked only their second live performance—and the volatile shows underscored friction between Baker and his bandmates.

After the tour the members again scattered, though Sony acquired the group, reissuing Yerself Is Steam with the additional track, the sublime single “Car Wash Hair,” recorded alongside Luna’s Dean Wareham. In 1992 Mint Films and Jungle Records reissued the album with the bonus disc Lego My Ego, containing live cuts and a cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay.”

For the second album the musicians installed a studio inside a barn and gathered field recordings from locations including Times Square and NASA’s Cape Canaveral to enrich the dense, prismatic sound. Internal tensions persisted; several pop-oriented songs penned by Donahue were set aside in favor of material better suited to Baker. Titled after a New York special-education initiative, Boces appeared in June 1993 and proved even more freewheeling than its predecessor. It reached number 43 on the U.K. Album chart yet fared less well domestically. Mercury Rev performed on Lollapalooza’s second stage but were removed from the bill at the Denver date owing to excessive volume. A promotional clip for the single “Something for Joey,” featuring porn star Ron Jeremy, featured suggestive space-age imagery that precluded mainstream exposure. Fridmann ceased touring that year, and after a contentious U.K. trek supporting Spiritualized, Baker was removed from the lineup. Recording as Shady, he released 1994’s World with contributions from members of the Boo Radleys, Rollerskate Skinny, and St. Johnny.

Without their former frontman, Mercury Rev pressed onward. In 1994 Grasshopper constructed the Tettix Wave Accumulator, a custom tone generator assembled from oscillators, filters, and wave-shape manipulators, which the band deployed on that year’s Everlasting Arm single and its third album. Issued in September 1995, See You on the Other Side wove jazz and show-tune influences into psych-rock frameworks while emphasizing greater melodic clarity and emotional resonance. The following month the group issued the largely improvised 40-minute set Paralyzed Mind of the Archangel Void under the name Harmony Rockets. Insufficient label support for See You on the Other Side, coupled with financial difficulties, substance issues, and personal setbacks, exacted a toll; Chambers exited, and the remaining members requested release from Sony. Grasshopper spent six months in a Jesuit monastery in Spain before issuing the solo album Orbit of Eternal Grace on Beggars Banquet in 1998. He rejoined Donahue, who had endured a nervous breakdown, and the pair issued a cover of the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory song “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket” as Harmony Rockets in 1997.

Mercury Rev resurfaced in 1997, first guesting on the Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole before commencing work on a fourth album. Donahue and Grasshopper relocated to the Catskills to concentrate on songwriting inspired by their surroundings and childhood records, while revisiting material from the band’s earliest days. At Tarbox Road studio with Fridmann—who was simultaneously producing the Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin—the group welcomed the Band’s Levon Helm and Garth Hudson, supplanting prior feedback and distortion with strings, horns, and woodwinds. During these sessions Mercury Rev signed with V2 Records, which released Deserter’s Songs in September 1998. The album finally translated critical esteem into commercial success, achieving gold certification in Europe and the U.K.

Plans for the next record included collaboration with Jack Nitzsche, renowned for his arrangements on numerous Phil Spector productions, until Nitzsche died a week before tracking commenced. Expanding the dramatic template of Deserter’s Songs and incorporating string arrangements by Tony Visconti, All Is Dream arrived in September 2001. It too earned gold status in the U.K., while the single “The Dark Is Rising” reached number 16 on the U.K. Singles Chart. The band maintained its exploratory course throughout the 2000s. The Secret Migration, a set of sentimental love songs, peaked at number 16 on the U.K. Albums Chart upon its January 2005 release. The ensuing two years proved prolific, yielding the best-of collection Essential Mercury Rev: Stillness Breathes 1991-2006, the soundtrack Hello Blackbird, the instrumental exploration Inner Autumn Outer Space, and the mix album Back to Mine.

Mercury Rev joined Yep Roc for the delicate, largely electronic Snowflake Midnight, which entered the U.K. Albums Chart at number 52 in September 2008; a companion release, Strange Attractor, appeared simultaneously as a free online download. The following year the band contributed a cover of Miracle Legion’s “Sailors and Animals” to the benefit album Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, assembled to support Mulcahy after his wife Melissa’s sudden death in 2008.

During the 2010s Mercury Rev both revisited earlier triumphs and advanced new work. A deluxe edition of Deserter’s Songs featuring rare demos and remixes surfaced in 2011. The next year Grasshopper and Donahue revived Harmony Rockets for European and American tours that produced the digital albums The Crawling Journey of the Serpents Starry Night and Angels Are Spirits, Flames of Fire. Additional experimental endeavors encompassed performances of Mercury Rev’s Cinematic Sound Tettix BrainWave Concerto Experiment at John Zorn’s New York City venue The Stone.

New material returned with the October 2015 Bella Union release The Light in You, comprising songs Donahue and Grasshopper recorded primarily at their Catskills residence alongside bassist Anthony Molina and engineer Scott Petito. That year the group also launched a track-by-track recreation of Bobbie Gentry’s 1968 cult classic The Delta Sweete. Featuring female vocalists Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Phoebe Bridgers, and Vashti Bunyan, Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited appeared in February 2019 and reached number 32 on the U.K. Albums Chart. A deluxe edition of All Is Dream containing B-sides, live recordings, and further rarities followed in November. In September 2020 Mercury Rev issued an expansive reissue of The Secret Migration that incorporated Hello Blackbird among its supplements. The May deluxe edition of Snowflake Midnight included Strange Attractor plus live recordings and extensive previously unreleased material.

The band spent much of the subsequent two years on the road, performing festival dates and distinctive engagements such as a 2022 acoustic collaboration with the Chameleons’ Mark Burgess and a 2023 presentation accompanying the classic horror film Vampyr. September 2024’s Born Horses marked Mercury Rev’s first original music in nine years. Shaped by Donahue and Grasshopper’s shared affinity for Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Robert Creeley, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, the album—also featuring pianist Jesse Chandler and keyboardist Marion Genser—paired flowing sonics with Donahue’s largely spoken reflections on love, loss, and freedom.