•
Rating: Year 1991. A band from Buffalo called Mercury Rev decides to release on 35 mm film some songs composed to accompany the images of films shot by their college mates. What comes out (and will later be published in more accessible formats) is one of the most beautiful psychedelic rock albums: "Yerself Is Steam", an intense, hallucinated, wild album.
It all starts with the drunken and distorted chant of "Chasing A Bee", built on a Neil Young-style melody that gradually gets smothered by deafening feedback, with a song-ending accompanied by a fairy-tale flute. Within the grooves of "Yerself Is Steam" are then found wild rides and stretches like "Syringe Mouth" (a hypothetical hybrid between Pixies and Flaming Lips), and "Sweet Oddysee Of A Cancer Cell T'Th'Center Of Yer Heart", played on an alternation between menacing stasis and chaotic sound vortices reminiscent of the Velvet Underground. But there's more: "Blue And Black" is a track with a gothic mood accompanied by an orchestral arrangement that would not look out of place in a Hollywood soundtrack, "Frittering" offers a poignant Pink Floyd-like melody that floats in the air like a cloud for 8 minutes, "Coney Island Cyclone" a beautiful rock track built on the guitar riff of "Walk On The Wild Side". And finally comes the long mantra of "Very Sleepy Rivers", which with its Indian melody and hysterical singing drags the listener's mind towards oblivion, at the end of an unimaginable journey.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Chasing a Bee (07:11)
Those seducers [4x]
bombed out lovers, gallant red flocks of mellow seducers, fine [find?] eager seekers, deep deef down
beautiful lines from above and we're all a-glow
raise her head and things get warm, hold on to its leg, before it flies away
sun lit walks, I feel no harm, my primitive words match my primitive heart [hide?]
it's not as easy as it may seem, remember that yourself is steam
[chorus] and of course it don't mind, chasing a bee inside a jar [x2]
Then like sheep led to sacrifial slaughter, they don't mind, but they oughta, all the time (they oughta)
their pretty shells are so inviting, well protected
their eyes are rivers, they give me shivers
[chorus]
it's not time for the real life [live?] sign, it's not time for these fears of mine [x2]
i'm feeling troubled, i'm feeling trapped, can't shake that bubble off my back
it's not as easy as it may seem, remember that yourself is steam [x2]
it's not time for the real life sign, it's not time for these fears of mine
i'm feeling troubled, i'm feeling trapped, can't shake that bubble off my back
i feel no harm, i feel no harm, ...feel no harm
[chorus]
its not as easy as it may seem, remember that yourself is steam
what once was lost will never be found, keep spinning in circles until you break new ground
03 Coney Island Cyclone (02:37)
no, i won't chicken out
hey, wait, babe
wait up now
hey babe, wait up now
if we could find a space
where we could both stretch out
roll like coney island cyclones
no, i won't chicken out
no, i won't chicken out
no doubt babe
no doubt now
no doubt babe
no doubt now
i spend all day
on your mom's couch
spend all night
and i won't chicken out
no, i won't chicken out
let's go out tonight
find a sunny space
picking up the skylab
throw it back in space
no, i won't chicken out (i'm not messing with you)
no, i won't chicken out (i'm not messing with you)
no, i won't chicken out (i'm not messing with you)
no, i won't chicken out (i'm not messing with you)
05 Sweet Oddysee of a Cancer Cell t' th' Center of Yer Heart (07:41)
{this one is very tricky to make out, so most of these lyrics are probably wrong.} onto the ice flow where all the [?] [?] where heaven put the seeds here on the ice flow a tresure dust of grass my drove them engines for [?] onto the ice flow where the wind starts to move and the earth will have a flood here on the ice flow where skulls go as long girls never sleep girls will die and skin is froze body
06 Frittering (08:48)
I've seen you eat away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine*
I've seen you chisel away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine
and you wonder why I leave so soon
how I get so high sink to the bottom of your room
I've seen you fritter away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine
I've seen you whittle away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the spine
And you wonder why I leave so soon
how I get so high sink to the bottom of your room
I wonder why I stay
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine
I've seen you eat away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine
I wonder what to do
slow as a glacier takes to move on through the world
And you wonder why I leave so soon
how I get so high sink to the bottom of your room
And you wonder why I leave so soon
how I get so high sink to the bottom of your room
I've seen you chisel away
Hammer in place always in time
I've seen you chisel away
slow as a glacier makes its way down to the Rhine
And you wonder why I leave so soon
how I get so high sink to the bottom of your room
08 Very Sleepy Rivers (12:15)
(0:00)
(1:00)
*I sensed a new scent
*So innocent and bent.
*I sense a new scent that's innocent and spent.
I feel good. Not so good.
Very Sleepy Rivers
A very sleepy place
Very Sleepy Rivers
A very sleepy place
milk silver and sulk
(2:00)
fish in warm clear liquid
I feel so wet.
I feel kinda misguided.
Very Sleepy River
A very sleepy place
Very Sleepy River
A very sleepy place (kinda thing)
very sleepy river
very sleepy river
(it's just a thing)
very sleepy river
(just a thing)
a very sleepy thing..thing..thing
a very sleepy place
very sleepy...
(3:00)
(a very sleepy river)
a very sleepy river
*a place a place
a verbal trashing
a verbal trashing
a verbal trashing
a verbal trashing
a verbal trashing
milk silver and sulk
*nothing quivers
a very sleepy river
a river ?
*burn burn burn
???
space
words tumble from me
a very sleepy river
words tumble from me
a very sleepy place
(4:00)
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy place
stop all that twitching
I'm alright ?
a twisted thing
a laughing ?
disregard
disregard
very sleepy rivers remind me of falling down
very ???
the water's wet and i want my daddy
???
(5:00)
???
very rusty very rusty very...very lusty
very sleepy lusty (lusty lusty lusty)
i wish everything was lusty
lusty
i believe in color
i believe in *color
i believe in coming unglued
i believe ? *when you're far away
*your father waiting ?
in a very sleepy place
a very sleepy river
(6:00)
a very sleepy place
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy...place
???
very sleepy cushy wave
a very sleepy place
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy...
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy place
(7:00)
a very sleepy place
???
*innocent
*my scent
innocent
*repent
*innocent
*my scent
innocent
i feel spent
???
(8:00)
???
submerged in a very sleepy place
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river
???
very..sleepy..space
(9:00)
?
cushy
???
innocent
*my scent
innocent
*repent
innocent
*my scent
innocent
*repent
i believe in *love
(10:00)
a very sleepy river
a very sleepy river...
a very sleepy space
???
in a very crazy
???
(11:00)
*kick the brain
writhing like a whore
very sleepy river
very sleepy place
a very sleepy river
???
very sleepy...
(12:00)
(end)
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By De-cano
Too chaotic at times, at first listen they might seem like a poor copy of the Flaming Lips... as you continue through the album, you realize that this might actually be their intent.
Chaos that is not primordial, but immature and lavish.
