Patterns

Over swirling, atmospheric instrumentals, Mercury Rev frontman Jonathan Donahue reflects on the apparent randomness of the night sky. While the stars may seem scattered and chaotic, they suggest that a deeper order exists when viewed from a broader perspective. "When we gaze up at the stars in the sky at night, the flickering lights seem random," he said of the inspiration for the track. "If we could zoom out and see all of the galaxies revolving around each other, we would see the order in it. There are only Patterns on top of Patterns."

"Patterns" is the lead single from Mercury Rev's 10th album, Born Horses. Largely recorded at the band's Catskills studio, the album was mixed by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol). Working amid such treasured totems as the piano multi-instrumentalist Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak acquired from Donahue's elementary school, they didn't rush. Grasshopper told Mojo magazine creating music around Donahue's prerecorded prose poems was like "a Brecht or Weill thing, the words suggesting visuals and the visuals suggesting moods."

Thematically, Born Horses sees Donahue tap the sometimes revelatory well of deep self-reflection. "It's not my diary of the pandemic and it's not a list of complaints," he told Mojo. "It's the splashes and ripples that unnerve you before your inner pond finally returns to stillness." "Ghosts from our musical past seem ever present," Donahue added. "At times it feels like Hamlet or Macbeth. There's a sense of doubt creeping in."