Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and James McAlister have launched a new song to celebrate the release of their forthcoming, collaborative album Planetarium. ‘Mercury’ is the second track to be released from Planetarium, out Friday 9 June. Watch the video below!
Planetarium unites Stevens’ vocals, McAlister’s beats, Dessner’s guitar performance, and Muhly’s instrumental compositions: from lush piano ballads to rock anthems, classical cadenzas to electronic beats with Stevens’ distinctive vocals providing a centre of gravity.
After sketching the framework of the song cycle and performing the piece as a band, they put the project on hold for several years. Returning to the raw material in 2016, Stevens and McAlister reversed their typical process, taking recordings of the live show and adapting to the studio. “We had recorded all the arrangements and the live parts in a studio after our last performance,” says Stevens, “so years later when we all kind of settled down, we said, ‘let’s open Pandora’s box.’”
Listen / purchase ‘Mercury’: https://remotecontrol.lnk.to/PlanetariumMercury
