Album: Various artists <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Mercury Rev - Back to Mine, DMC

As one might expect from a band as eclectic as Mercury Rev, their late-night mixtape compilation offers a selection of style and genres, incorporating legends (Billie Holiday, George Jones, Nico, Pharoah Sanders and Randy Newman) alongside more outré talents. What's also no surprise, given the layered approach of their early albums, is the elegant congruence of many of the segues: the opening link from Bowie's "A New Career in a New Town" to Johan Johannsson's "Hotel Borg", for instance, is all about shared intent and melodic echoes, while the move from John Cale's "Days of Steam" to Andrew Bird's "Opposite Day" involves the subtlest of shifts from viola to violin. The most sustained progress, however, is from the band's "Cecilia's Lunar Exposé", a slice of Saucerful Of Secrets-era Floydism, through the Neu!-style groove of Spacemen 3's "Big City", to the erotic trance-scape of Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream", a beautifully modulated arc for the more ambitious musical explorers, with childlike comforts furnished by "Seasons In the Sun" and "When You Wish Upon A Star".

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Days Of Steam', 'Big City', 'Dream Baby Dream', 'Cecilia's Lunar Exposé'