In addition to playing guitar and contributing occasional vocals to Mercury Rev, Grasshopper has a new CD out under the name "Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets," entitled The Orbit of Eternal Grace. Like Mercury Rev, Grasshopper on his own is gifted at layering zillions of different guitars and unidentified flying musical objects into a multidimensional cloud of atmospheric phenomena. The resulting precipitate seldom resolves into the undifferentiated gunk that constitutes the main hazard of the maximalist approach. Even quieter, pretty episodes like "The Ballad of the One-Eyed Anglefish" or "Nickel in a Lemon" reveal much bubbling below the surface in headphones. And Grasshopper does quiet and pretty as well as anyone, never blurbling forth the musical equivalent of big-eyed orphan paintings on black velvet. The album features Mercury Rev flute player Suzanne Thorpe, as well as Justin and J. Russo from Hopewell, who tour with Mercury Rev. The album was finished nearly two years ago, right after Mercury Rev's See You on the Other Side, but legal hassles prevented its release until now. Grasshopper says that the album evolved because the label switch meant that "Mercury Rev couldn't really do anything during that time. I was just working on some of these ideas to see what would happen. I wrote 'Hudson Line' around the same time, but I saved that one for Mercury Rev. A lot of the other songs I just did slowly, in the home studio and other studios near where I live." Grasshopper proves himself adept at both evocative nostalgia and dropping contemporary studio science. The touching "New York Avenue Playground" (here in two versions, full-band and acoustic) paints a compelling picture rooted in time and place, while a number like "Univac Bug Track" presents Grasshopper in a more abstract, electronic setting. The track sounds exactly like its title - jittery, chitinous bits flitting hither and yon - but slightly antique and clunky as well, in an affecting way. Oh - and give Grasshopper credit for best title pun of the year, with "SMPTE for the Devil," SMPTE being a time code for syncing up sound and image on film.

Artist
Album Title
Song Title