New Release of the Week: Mercury Rev - Born Horses

In upstate New York, deep in the seam between the Catskills mountains and the Hudson Valley, a richly swelling, spellbound sound emerges, eddying and flowing like the local Esopus Creek, or in the slipstream of the grander Hudson river.

A sound composed of organic and electronic; guitars, keys, brass, strings, woodwind, drums - and a voice of incantations, tapping streams of consciousness that similarly flow.

Spiritually, literally, psycho-geographically: where else does Mercury Rev's ninth album ‘Born Horses’ spring from? This cascade of gleaming, glistening psych-jazz folk-baroque-ambient quest?

The answer is somewhere between the homes of founder members Jonathan Donahue (the hamlet of Mt Tremper) and Grasshopper (the town of Kingston), in their veins and brains of their now legendary tapping of musical cosmology, and the vital presence of new permanent member Marion Genser (keys).

Plus long-term ally Jesse Chandler (keys) and guests Jeff Lipstein (drums), Martin Keith (double bass) and Jim Burgess (trumpet).

Sound Pick: The The - Ensoulment

The The’s first studio album of new songs in a quarter of a century is upon us.

The 12 songs on Ensoulment encompasses characteristic topics ranging from love and sex, war and politics, life and death – to the meaning of what it is to be human in the 21st century.

Singer-songwriter Matt Johnson is joined by long-standing The The members James Eller (bass), DC Collard (keyboards), Earl Harvin (drums), and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar).

The album also marks the return of co-producer and engineer Warne Livesey, who previously worked on landmark The The albums Infected (1986) and Mind Bomb (1989).

Additional performances include Gillian Glover (backing vocals), Terry Edwards (horns), Sonya Cullingford (fiddle) and Danny Cummings (percussion).

The featured albums are available from Sound Records which can be found in Wellington Street, Douglas.