Latest releases reviewed
MERCURY REV
Stillness Breaths: The Essential Mercury Rev 1991-2006
V2
****
Gossamer soundtracks to the real and ethereal have always been Mercury Rev's stock-in-trade, as this round-up from 15 years at the coalface shows. From their base in the Catskills, Mercury Rev have operated along similar lines to Washington Irving, another chronicler of the mountain terrains of upstate New York, in how they've imagined and captured a new world. Even before 1998's Deserter's Songs came along and swept them into American rock's garlanded pantheon, Mercury Rev were finding and unwrapping much mystery and psychedelic possibilities in their music. The glorious Chasing a Bee from 1992's Yerself Is Steam or Everlasting Arm from 1995's See You On the Other Side are sepia-toned mementos from the band's more experimental, out-there travels. As Mercury Rev added shimmering melodies to their canon, the likes of Holes, Goddess on a Hiway and In a Funny Way started to appear and bring a raft of new opportunities. The chapters to come should be even more imaginative. www.mercuryrev.com - Jim Carroll
THE 4 OF US
Fingerprints
EMI
***
It's been nearly 20 years since the brothers Murphy burst onto the Irish scene with brash pop energy. Despite being saddled with the most uncool name in rock, Brendan and Declan are still here, still writing songs for the tempted, and still staying closely in touch with their roots. The sleeve features a portrait of the brothers' ancestors from the 1930s, and the music brims with a palpable sense of the past, the acoustic guitars evoking a grand old era of folk, blues and r'n'b. The Newry lads have matured with the music, though, and deliver such songs as Wildflower, Free Spirit, Free Love and Anything Can Happen with an accomplished sense of time and place; familiar and comforting it may be, but there's room for the odd splash of brilliance, particularly on Dive in the River and the wryly dystopian What's to Come. www.the4ofus.com - Kevin Courtney
CLINIC
Visitations
Domino
****
Not for this Liverpool quartet the usual jangly, Beatles-influenced pop guff. Theirs is a skeletal shockabilly style, a dislocated drone that sounds like Beefheart, Gene Vincent and Dr Who fused together in a matter transporter. As on their last three albums, Clinic don't go much for musical variety; they tend to establish a beat and a rudimentary tune and then hammer away at them with various industrial-strength tools. The fun is in hearing how many weird, otherworldly sounds and strange, alien interludes they can pack into each tune. Family is a fuzzed-up, flaked-out stomper and Animal/Human a menacing Morris dance with autoharp and wah-wah guitars. Tusk is a primitive polka that could have been dug out of Dr Demento's archives, and If You Could Read Your Mind revisits Pink Floyd's Lucifer Sam while summoning up demons of its own. Leading the mad sonic menagerie is vocalist Ade Blackburn, sounding like Neddy from The Goons doing a karaoke Kid A. He brings everything into crazy, twisted perspective on Children of Kellog. www.clinicvoot.org - Kevin Courtney
STEPHAN MICUS
On the Wing
ECM 985 4516
***
Any record that includes such instruments as sattar, mudbedsh, nay, suling, hné, gong, hang, shakuhachi, mandobahar and sitar sets its stall out immediately: this is not the album to give to your average My Chemical Romance fan. More's the pity, for Bavarian Stephan Micus's latest record (his 17th for ECM) teems with the kind of resonant mind-melt that genre rock fans think they don't need. The track titles - Winterlight, Gazelle, Morning Sky, In the Dancing Snow, Turquoise Fields, Blossoms in the Wind - are a giveaway, bringing to mind the beatific calm of mid-'70s extreme alt.prog rock acts such as Stomu Yamashta and Gong. Eastern in influence, global in execution, On the Wing is mood music of the highest order. wwwecmrecords.com - Tony Clayton-Lea
