Glenn Mercer, Wheels in Motion

More than thirty years into his career, Glenn Mercer (best known from the Feelies) has released his first solo album, Wheels in Motion. Most of the people he recruited to play on the album are former Feelies, and as a result the album sounds a lot like what the Feelies might sound like thirty years on. Wheels in Motion is closest in feel to the pastoral sound of The Good Earth, although it’s even cleaner and mellower than that. But never fear — there is still plenty of that raving-up that the Feelies were known for.

In fact, Glenn Mercer is a master of the rave-up. Like Rhys Chatham, he finds a melody that’s strong enough that you’re still not tired of it after four or five minutes. And then he changes it just enough to keep the song moving, and like with Philip Glass, each small change becomes interesting enough to sustain the song. Sustaining any kind of drone in an interesting way is difficult to do, but he manages it beautifully.

It helps that several songs have absolutely beautiful melodies, so you want to hear them over and over anyway. “Wheels in Motion” is rightly the title track here, with a pretty picked acoustic guitar part complemented by a nice distorted electric lead. “Two Rights,” another great song, has a chorus and an outro which add just enough harmonic change without disturbing the hypnotic quality of the song. And the rest of the melodies are more than strong enough to sustain themselves. The only thing that’s superfluous is the cover of “Within You, Without You/Love You To,” which proves that the rave-up has musical predecessors beyond the Velvet Underground, but he doesn’t add that much to the song.

The most interesting part is that other than the drums (and some bass), Glenn Mercer played almost all of the instruments himself. ‘Cause it’s a remarkably tight-sounding album. The key to a rave-up is the groove that underpins it — it’s the groove that makes it so hypnotic — and the fact that he was able to get that quality while playing most of the parts separately is impressive. It doesn’t sound any less “alive” than the Feelies’ records themselves.

Since it’s unlikely that the Feelies are coming back any time soon, this is probably the closest thing you’ll get to a Feelies reunion. So it’s nice to see that this is also an excellent record, on par with any of the Feelies’ albums. Hopefully Mercer will keep putting out records as good as this one.