Mercury Rev readies first new studio album in nearly four years, "Snowflake Midnight" set for Sept. 30 release
July 16, 2008, 12:00 am

The New York Times has called the music of Mercury Rev "a free associative castle in the air, with every detail shimmering." On Snowflake Midnight, the group's first proper album in nearly four years, they tear the castle down.

Recorded over several months in late 2007/early 2008, and co-produced by David Fridmann and Mercury Rev (who remain Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper, and Jeff Mercel), the nine new songs on Snowflake Midnight mark a significant conceptual shift for the band. If its last landmark release - 1998’s Deserter's Songs - signaled a reinvention, then ‘Snowflake Midnight’ is a reboot.

In a sense, Mercury Rev had to "unlearn" twenty years of experience to make Snowflake. "We wanted to let go of familiar and comfortable ideas of sound and ways of working," says Mercel. Traditional instruments were abandoned for vintage and cutting edge electronics. Songs weren't written so much as they evolved. Order was abandoned, and happenstance was embraced, resulting in one of the most fertile creative outpourings in the band's history. Every song included on Snowflake was edited, manipulated and distilled from hours of recorded material.

Instrumental companion album Strange Attractor available for free from MercuryRev.com on release day

A similarly painstaking process went into making Strange Attractor, a companion album which will be made available as a free download from mercuryrev.com and yeproc.com. This all-instrumental album shares some musical themes with Snowflake Midnight but features eleven exclusive, all-new songs. Strange Attractor will also accompany the vinyl release of Snowflake Midnight.

At the behest of curators My Bloody Valentine, Mercury Rev will play the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Catskills, NY on Sept 21. Additional U.S. tour dates will follow this fall.