MERCURY'S ANTENNAE

“Through the scores of centuries, we see our soul. Amid the tides memories, draw, drawn we don’t know.”

Mercury’s Antennae was born in 2010 when multi-instrumentalist Erick R Scheid (The Palace of Tears) met vocalist Dru Allen (This Ascension) in San Francisco. He approached her with the idea of collaborating on music and an enduring connection formed, as Allen gave voice to a number of previously recorded instrumentals.

In 2015 the band turned officially into a trio when bassist Cindy Coulter (This Ascension, Faith and the Muse) joined for the, that year, tour line-up.

From shoegaze pop to unadorned acoustic beauty with earthy, grounding elements, seven years after the release of their celestial ‘The Moon Viewing Garden’ EP, Mercury’s Antennae have re-emerged with their latest offering of sonic lullabies; ‘Among the Black Trees’.

Erick R Scheid: “’Among the Black Trees’ is almost concept album in a way. Themes of love, death, rebirth, reconciliation and the imagined landscape of the unseen world are all intentionally, sonicalland emotionally fed into the music. And Dru’s lyrical contribution truly adds a vastness of beauty and life to the music. Her lyrics on this album are my favorite; literally every song. Cindy was very receptive and active in writing this music alongside of me. While I had the demos, her ideas and creative insights held the music to be very truthful and not to be too overindulgent. Her openness to explore a deeper bass sound with tunings makes this album truly different from all our previous work. Both Dru and Cindy have had a huge impact on this work, and it’s the first album where we all three equally wrote the music together.”

Cindy Coulter: “For a large part of the song-making process, Erick and I lived in the same city, which was a first since I joined this project, and we became a trio. It was really great to bounce ideas off of each other in person, rather than passing files electronically as we had done on previous releases. It was pretty great to get immediate feedback on ideas and concepts, and I think you can hear that in this work we created.

This work has certainly been through a journey! A few band-member moves, a global pandemic, and a lot of distance inbetween. I am elated that it is finally seeing the light of day, and going to an audience that I hope will get enjoyment and inspiration from it. We all put our heart and soul into it. I think it's our best album to date (I know every musician says that, but I really mean it!), and I believe it's more poignant now than ever.”

Dru Allen: “...there was loss, grief, and ruptures in different kinds of relationships for each of us. The pandemic exacerbated feeling separate. To be frank, over a period of years some of us exchanged only a few words with each other. Erick started a new project, but if he had not done that, he would not have upped his technical skills, musicianship, and experience performing live and even online shows. So, where there was this loss, this hole, it turned into a fertile space. I also had some growth musically because I have always loved world music but I never thought about pursuing other styles. Geneva is extremely multicultural, so I have attended many singing workshops and seminars from different traditions, focusing mostly on Balkan and Georgian music.”

Ethereal, hypnotic, driving, cinematic, … ‘Among the Black Trees’ is the kind of album that contains real gems who will reveal themselves the more you listen to it. 9 ghostly realm pearls telling tales of reflection, rebirth, reconciliation and overlaying dense. An album you will listen to in one go, and then will repeat again (and again (and again) ).

Released 20 March 2025, ‘Among The Black Trees’ is available as digital album on Bandcamp: Among The Black Trees | Mercury's Antennae

www.mercurysantennae.com

Hayley CLX
06/05/2025