Sweden’s Nicolai Dunger has spent the past few years carving out a niche for himself as a consummate collaborator, working on recordings with The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Calexico, and Will Oldham. Here Mercury Rev take over as his backing band, lending their psychedelic leanings to his blue-eyed soul voice. Their slow-motion twang and pretty slide guitar are the icing on the cake of tuneful tracks like “My Time Is Now,” “White Wild Horses,” and “Tell Me.” There are also some dreary experiments, like the eight-minute “The Year of Love and Hurt Cycle,” a whiny and listless conceptual drag through each month of a relationship. And at times, Mercury Rev indulge Dunger’s penchant for jazzbo scatting and vacuous lyrics. But the good material here is as good as anything he’s recorded.
Nicolai Dunger + Rhett Miller | April 12 | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | 617.228.6000
On the Web
Nicolai Dunger: http://www.nicolaidunger.com
