My new remix single – ‘The Great Acceleration (Devours Remix)’ – releases on August 4th, 2023.
New music video coming soon!
About the song
”It was a grief that felt almost a betrayal of the deep joy in my life.” – Jane Rule
Canadian writer Jane Rule wrote a lovely essay about grief and love after the death of Helen Sonthoff, her partner of 44 years. Around 2012, I read excerpts of the essay in a local paper and was so moved by her expressions of longing and love. I was so struck by her laying bare the universal truth that joy shouldn’t come with a promise of pain afterwards and is crueler because of it. The piece inspired me to write a poem that I introduced to one of my musical collaborators, Ron Yamauchi, one night while we were jamming. Ron took the poem home with him that night and came back to our next session and had transformed it into this beautiful song.
The song follows the main character’s emotional journey through grief and longing, and ultimately finds relief from their heartache by meeting their departed lover in their dreams.
I gave Mercury Teardrop ‘the keys’ (as he says) to the song and he takes it on a sonic journey that lands somewhere between avant-garde and electronica. The song has a drum and bass vibe overall, very rhythmic with lots of shifts and sonic breakdowns, which in theory shouldn’t work with the melodic vocals at the centre of the song. But, it does and the outcome is this very unique mix that juxtaposes the sorrow and anguish of loss with the exhiliaration and delight of love.
Mercury Teardrop’s Artist Statement
‘In My Dream’ is a song that captivated me from the moment I heard it… the haunting undertones of sadness and grief with the contrast of a beautiful and optimistic melody allowed me to envision a sonic backdrop incongruent with reality. It took me to experimenting with rhythms and textures that don’t traditionally align but make sense only in dream-logic.
About Mercury Teardrop
Mercury Teardrop is the solo project of Canadian musician Bradley Roger Bauman. Brad is also lead guitarist for Modern Angel.
Remixed and produced by Mercury Teardrop
Original vocal – Recorded by Brent Cross at Vancouver’s The Grizz Studios, 2016.
Instrumentation – Mercury Teardrop
Mastered by Marcelo Mascetti
Single cover – Laforest Creative