Legendary psychedelic rock band Mercury Rev have shared their new single ‘A Bird Of No Address’, the radiant and uplifting third track from their upcoming album Born Horses.
The track, as well as the whole album, is a gleaming mixture of psychedelic and ambient sounds, building throughout the song. The flightiness of feelings is explored by the metaphor of a bird in ‘A Bird Of No Address’. Commenting on the track, Mercury Rev’s Grasshopper said: “As Rebecca Solnit (poet laureate of hope) writes, ‘The grounds for hope are in the shadows, in the people who are inventing the world while no one looks, who themselves don’t know yet whether they will have any effect.’ For all the birds of no address: Fly on!”
The new album is out in September and the title, named after the majestically rippling sixth track ‘Born Horses’, was chosen because its words resonate through the entire record, encompassing the idea of flight (“I dreamed we were born horses waiting for wings”) and the phrase “You and I” that appears at different junctures on the album. The band describe how this is not the concept of two separate people, but two parts of one’s self.
Singer Jonathan Donahue said: “When I opened my voice to sing on this record, this was the bird that sang: a lower, whiskery voice, which surprised me as much as it may others. I don’t know where the bird came from, but it’s there now, and I don’t question it. It’s just the bird that wants to sing.”
Mercury Rev will be playing a number of UK and European dates in support of the new album. Their tour kicks off in Belfast on 27 October, with performances in Bristol, Newcastle, Glasgow and Brighton following. The group head to Amsterdam on 11 November, before the first leg of the tour finishes in Oslo on 18 November. The band will then return to the UK in March 2025 with shows in Liverpool, Manchester and Portsmouth before a final gig in London on 19 March. Full tour dates and tickets can be found here.
Born Horses is out on 6 September 2024 via Bella Union. Pre-order here.
