Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Mercury Rev's ninth album, Born Horses, emerges from the mystical landscapes of upstate New York where you will find a richly swelling, spellbound sound that blends organic and electronic elements. This album, a cascade of psych-jazz-folk-baroque-ambient exploration, taps into the spiritual and literal seam between the Catskills and Hudson Valley. The music flows with guitars, keys, brass, strings, woodwind, and drums converging to create an evocative soundscape. The voice of incantations and streams of consciousness adds depth to this sonic journey. Featuring founder members Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper, new permanent member Marion Genser, long-term ally Jesse Chandler, and guests Jeff Lipstein, Martin Keith, and Jim Burgess, Born Horses is a microcosm of their musical cosmology. Inspired by Broadway tunes, lonesome blues and the likes of Chet Baker and Miles Davis, the album feels both nostalgic and forward-looking. Dedicated to avant-garde artist Tony Conrad and Beat poet Robert Creeley, Born Horses is a vulnerable, reflective masterpiece, revealing the timeless essence within its intricate compositions.

Review: On their eighth album, Mercury Rev has tapped into the long and illustrious history of 'landscape music' - works inspired by specific environments, whether natural or man-made. In the case of Born Horses, it's the former, with the band situating themselves in the wilds of upstate New York and delivering a set they describe as "glistening psych-jazz, folk, baroque-ambient". In practice, this means immersive, enveloping songscapes that make use of a vast range of acoustic and electronic instruments, both sung and spoken vocals, and a lengthy list of influences and inspirations that apparently included Vangelis, songs from Broadway musicals, movie soundtracks, Chet Baker and Miles Davis. That it sounds nothing like any of them, and is very much its own atmospheric sound world, is testament to the long-serving band's endearing quality. A genuine delight and arguably their best album for some time.

Review: It's hard not to feel hypnotised by "How To Live". Modern Nature's debut long form outing opens with the sombre, mournful strings of "Bloom" - a strong case for albums setting the mood before developing. Finally kicking in with a stepping, building track, from thereon in the record expands, contracts and burrows through looping guitars, segments of field recordings, earthly folk lyricism, and wild saxophone solos. Second-to-last track "Nature" is almost a mirror image of "Footsteps", or at least an answer to any prevailing questions - they get deeper and more immersive. "Nightmares" pulls you in with gentle synths rippling in the background beneath soft lines of brass. "Criminals", meanwhile, is a more complex sounding affair, a fittingly dark-hued arrangement of simple guitar hook and slightly unnerving timbre that slowly reveals its true, far more positive intentions.