(2020) Mercury Rev - The Secret Migration [Deluxe Edition]


Review:
…Joining the original album are a second disc of B-sides and previously unissued outtakes, a third disc wholly devoted to hitherto unheard demos and a fourth disc of in-concert material culled from shows around the globe (again, previously unreleased). Disc 5 revisits the band’s subsequent soundtrack album, ‘Hello Blackbird’. Among the bonus tracks are Rev-esque versions of Bobby Charles’ Catskill Mountains inspired masterpiece ‘Tennessee Blues’, the plaintive modern spiritual ‘Afraid’ originally recorded by Nico, two Paul Westerberg penned gems ‘Androgynous’ and ‘Good Day’, Daniel Johnston’s ode to healing ‘Blue Clouds’ as well as a sublime Rev duet featuring Bonnie Anthony on their version of ‘I Never Had It So Good’ (a song the Rev chose from Kris and Rita’s 1973 LP “Full Moon”).

***

…The Secret Migration still sounds great fifteen years on and in the light of The Flaming Lips latest album American Head stands the test of time. Every track is stunning shimmering psychedelia at it’s best. The first three tracks ‘Secret for a Song’, ‘Across Yer Ocean’ and ‘Diamonds’ are excellent. Jonathan Donohue and Grasshopper were in their prime, knowing they could just produce gems to prove that Deserters Songs wasn’t a one off. The dream like ‘Black Forest (Lorelei)’, the sublime sounds of the great ‘In a Funny Way’ with it’s Northern Soul vibes flecked with grandeur psych, The Climbing Rose that plucks on your heartstrings and the movie soundtrack vibes of the maudlin Down Poured The Heavens that ends a great album. Disc 2 takes in all the B sides and out takes including some great covers including Tennessee Blues by Bobby Charles which is given The Rev treatment, the brilliant reworking of Afraid originally recorded by Nico, two Paul Westerburg penned gems Androgynous and Good Day excellently re-appraised and a tribute to Daniel Johnston’s ode to healing Blue Clouds. Also check out the Rev duet with Bonnie Anthony on their version of I Never Had It So Good from Kris and Rita’s 1973 LP Full Moon. The out takes include the acoustic beauty of Season Of Poussin and the keyboard laden Good Day which glows. Look At Brutus With His Knife is just pure Rev Magic that flows into an early Spiritualized mantra. Stunning stuff. Disc 3 takes in the delights of a stripped down Rev laying down the formation of the tunes that form an excellent studio album that marked them as a classic pysch band that set the standards. You’ve only got to listen to band like The Flaming Lips and Spiritualized to hear the beauty in this stuff. Black Forest is so chilled in execution you can smell the weed wafting around the studio. In A Funny Way sounds so echo laden and brilliant it takes you through the kind of writing that Syd Barrett would sort out with Nick Drake, a theremin and a dose of temazipan. It’s a testament to demo tapes that start off as ideas that build into epic songs. Highlight on this disc is Secret For A Song, stripped to the bone that you know when the skins added it’s going to be a hit. Mercury Rev showing their bare bones to creating and molding a classic album. Disc 4 is the live bit and it’s Censoredin’ ace! There’s stuff on here from Sydney Opera House, Toronto, Stockholm, The Hammersmith Apollo, Leipzig, Perth, Skopje, Coachella and the rest. Highlights on this are the brilliant Black Forest (Lorelei) in Toronto and the majestic version of Holes in Leipzig back in 2004. This is a band you have to have witnessed live at some point in your life. I saw them at Reading when they did a chaotic set of stuff like Chasing A Bee and Carwash Hair. I saw them at Bluedot when I must have mentioned before they blew me away with Goddess On A Highway which made me cry like a baby. Mindblowing…
Last disc Hello Blackbird is the soundtrack to a drama film about a couple who become a circus trapeze act that ends in tragic circumstances, with Josef’s partner Alice dying in a daring event that is monikered the White Angel. An album that stand on it’s own, this is Mercury Rev going full classical music mode.


Tracklist:

CD1
01. Secret for a Song
02. Across Yer Ocean
03. Diamonds
04. Black Forest (Lorelei)
05. Vermillion
06. In the Wilderness
07. In a Funny Way
08. My Love
09. Moving On
10. The Climbing Rose
11. Arise
12. First-Time Mother's Joy (Flying)
13. Down Poured the Heavens

CD2
01. Tennessee Blues
02. Afraid
03. Seagull
04. Androgynous
05. Mirror For A Bell
06. Good Times Ahead
07. Blue Clouds
08. I Never Had It So Good
09. Black Forest (Lorelei) (Adam Peters Remix)
10. Late Night Request
11. A Season Of Poussin
12. Good Day
13. Look At Brutis With His Knife
14. The Alchemy Of Lovers

CD3
01. Diamonds (Demo)
02. Black Forest (Lorelei) ''Fender Jaguar Version'' (Demo)
03. First-Time Mother´s Joy (Flying) (Snippet)
04. In A Funny Way (Demo)
05. Seagull (Demo)
06. Vermillion (Demo)
07. Siphoned From The Sea (Demo)
08. My Love (Demo)
09. Secret For A Song (Snippet)
10. In The Wilderness (Snippet)
11. Black Forest (Loreley) ''Vega Barking'' (Demo)
12. It´s All That You Need (Snippet)
13. In The Wilderness (Demo)
14. Down Poured The Heavens (Demo)

CD4
01. Secret For A Song (Sydney Opera House 7,13,05)
02. Black Forest (Loreley) (Toronto 5,16,05)
03. Mirror For A Bell (Stockholm 3,17,05)
04. My Love (The Ritz (NYC) 5,19,05)
05. Vermillion (Florence 11,30,04)
06. In A Funny Way (Hammersmith Apollo 3,12,05)
07. First Time Mother´s Joy (Flying) (Lausane 11,27,04)
08. In The Wilderness (Perth 7,20,05)
09. Down Poured The Heavens (Skopje 6,10,05)
10. Holes (Leipzig 11,22,04)
11. Arise (Luxemborg 6,05,05)
12. Diamonds (St Brieve 6,03,05)
13. The Dark Is Rising (Coachella 4,30,05)

CD5
01. Blackbird's Call
02. Illumination by Street-Lamp
03. Waltz for Alice
04. Trial by Wire
05. Daydream for Nina
06. Audition Scene Sketch (Simply Because)
07. The White Birds
08. Josef's Vision
09. Eye of the Blackbird (Travelling Music II)
10. The Last of the White Birds (March Funebre)
11. Cinema Theme
12. First Flight of the White Birds
13. The Chimpy Waltz
14. Dempsey's Theme
15. Fantasia No. 1
16. Robert y Roberto
17. Travelling Music
18. Departed Angels
19. Simply Because


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, indie-rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits