Mercury Rising
IF YOUVE NEVER heard of The Mercury Program, no one would blame you. Unless you were obsessing over experimental instrumental bands in the early part of this decade, you very well could have missed it. But despite an absence from the music scene for more than five years, this mesmerizing postrock quartet has continued to intrigue a devoted group of fans and has finally returned to the road to give them what theyve been waiting for. The foursome, with its members now divided between Bed-Stuy, Long Island City and Gainesville, Fla., recorded and toured relentlessly from 1999 to 2003. In doing so, the group built a devoted following among those with a penchant for hypnotic, jazzinfluenced rock with its angular structures of searching guitars, sparkling vibraphone and atmospheric electronics floating on a bed of buoyant drumming.
But after the 2003 release of the Confines of Heat EP (a split with likeminded post-rockers Maserati), the bands fifth record in as many years, and the ensuing tour in support of it, both of the labels that had put out most of its music, Kindercore and Tiger Style, folded. Road weary and beholden to no one for another record, The Mercury Program decided to declare a much-deserved hiatus and quietly dispersed for what its members imagined would be several months to a year off. But as they focused on building relationships, relocating and other less-intensive musical pursuits, it became clear that full-time touring was no longer on the agenda.
The priority of doing the band definitely evaporated, explains Dave LeBleu, who handles drums, vibraphone and electronics in The Mercury Program, as we sit in a Williamsburg cafe. We just knew that we werent going to ever be this band that got huge and thats all we did. And I dont know if everybody wanted that anyway... Once we got a taste of it, it was like, OK, maybe not. The grind of a perpetually nomadic life on the road became less and less appealing as band members married, started families and set down roots in new locations. But the guys did continue to play music with bands like the sprawling folk outfit Holopaw and Rain Phoenixs pop band Papercranes (both based in Gainesville), and even assembled an album in 2006 after three-fourths of the band had moved from Florida to New York. They converged in Athens, Ga., at the studio of producer Andy Baker, with whom theyd always recorded, and laid down tracks that LeBleu says flowed from a spirit of non-conformity to their past work, and as a result were more straightforward and simply arranged.
We went in musically with the vibe of We dont have to answer to anyone, LeBleu says. I think we had sort of gone in a lot of times with the vibe How experimental can we be? and this time we didnt go in with any of that.
D.C. indie-punk label Lovitt Records signed on to release it, and The Mercury Program enlisted Jeremy Scott (whos worked with Woods and Vivian Girls, among others, at his Williamsburg studio The Civil Defense) to mix it and the legendary Bob Weston (bass player in the mammoth post-hardcore band Shellac and producer and engineer for numerous lauded indie groups) to master it.
And at the end of last year, Chez Viking (a reference to a cafe in Hemingways A Moveable Feast) finally surfaced, displaying the groups vibrant dynamic, which sways from the shimmering guitar mixed with reflective vibraphone of Backseat Blackout to the moody intricacies of Katos and the hypnotic ambience and jazz-influenced drumming of Stand & Sing.
With a new album to support, The Mercury Program set out in March for its first tour since 2006 and was surprised to be playing to bigger audiences than it did then. The band met scores of fans that had learned about it in the interim, and were among the hundreds of thousands who had tracked it down through a MySpace page.
Once we sort of vanished, as a lot of people think... the early groundwork just kept creating more fans, LeBleu says.
And now the band is ready to embark on a Northeast tour, with plans to venture out west later this year. And its already talking about getting together at the end of the year to work on new material, since playing together again has reminded the bandmates what theyve been missing all this time.
I think all of us would admit that our collective is the most significant musical thing that any of us has done, LeBleu says. When we get together and make a piece of music... our communication with each other, without having to say anything, is just there, as an energy. And I think thats a unique thing to find as a musician. Its what its all about.
> THE MERCURY PROGRAM June 4, The Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Ave. (at Havemeyer St.), Brooklyn, 347-529-6696; 7, $10. Also June 8 at Santos Party House.