Where the Lips were clearly a product of classic rock, psychedelic and punk traditions, Mercury Rev were built on a philosophical foundation more than a musical one. At SUNY, Donahue studied under Robert Creeley, the famous postmodernist poet whose minimalist, evocative work often adopted the non-linear logic of jazz. Mackowiak studied under avant-garde director Paul Sharits and composer Tony Conrad, whose early '60s drone explorations would lay the groundwork for the Velvet Underground and whose classroom teachings instilled Mercury Rev new perspectives on creating art. “One of the first assignments he gave the class was to pick a movie or piece of music that we personally strongly disliked and write about it in a very positive way,” Mackowiak would recall to NPR after Conrad's death in 2016. Then, the next week, we had to do the opposite, pick something we liked and throw it out completely. This was a great exercise in opening the mind to the question, “What is the highbrow? What is the low brow? What is good art and what is bad?'… the distinctions between folk art/folk music and 'classical' were erased'. Baker, meanwhile, didn't even think in musical terms. “It's more the emotion that affects us than the music,” he told them LA Times in 1993. “An influence could be a boomerang of the car, chocolate, sex, or the deprivation of sex.”
In eight songs, Yerself Is Steam it uncorks a flood of sounds and sensations, resulting in an awe-inspiring experience that hovers in the liminal space between childhood innocence and adult anguish. This instability is reflected in the dynamic between the group's two singers: In Baker, you had a singer who sounded like a malfunctioning tape recorder, randomly switching between joy and gothic gloom, sometimes in the span of a single line. in Donahue, you had a more legendary one who could chase away dark clouds with his starry-eyed serenades while tapping deep veins of sadness. When their voices appear together, they're not so much playing off each other as confronting two completely different bands in their minds, making a song like “Syringe Mouth” sound like a kindergartener singing in the middle of a Butthole Surfers concert.
Given the group's scrappy origins, the members of Mercury Rev have always been quick to play down any grandiose plans on their part. Speaking about the band's creative process at LA Times, Baker said, “We're not trying to make radio-friendly hits, and if those song structures are there, well, it's not intentional.” No song advertised this anti-pop manifesto more proudly than “Very Sleepy Rivers,” where Baker freestyles off Dr.-like couplets. Seuss (“I smelled a new scent, so innocent and bent/I smell a new scent that's innocent and spent” ) in his creepiest register, while the band's sea-like groove drips and churns for over 12 unsettling minutes. But even at her most conflicted, Yerself Is Steam it's ultimately a testament to Mercury Rev's innate melodic stamina.
