mercury, the rising Tennessee-based artist born Maddie Kerr, has returned with her brand new single “Swarm The Hive Mind.” Marking the first release since her ambitious EP and short film Together We Are One, You And I earlier this year – the track serves as a reunion with coveted indie rock producer Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Snail Mail), stacked with walls of guitars and sludgy timbres.
“’Swarm The Hive Mind’ is about breaking out of a box; questioning and sometimes going off track of how everyone else thinks, lives, and acts,” says mercury. “It’s easy to get stuck in hive-minded thinking, and it’s important to see things from all angles and veer off from what seems normal sometimes.”
“Swarm The Hive Mind” is an apt second chapter to the sound Kerr captured on Together We Are One, You And I. An experimental voyage of grief, pain, and loss, the trio of songs oscillates between grunge and iridescent indie rock as they wander through the depths of human suffering and emerge resilient. Infinite black voids, spiritual iconography, and the scarlet glow of embers and flames define the EP’s companion short film, following Kerr and a cast of characters from different walks of life through narrative vignettes, contemporary dance, and poetic abstractions.
mercury’s arrival has made serious noise since the release of a pair of singles in “Trying” and “Woolgathering” late last year. For mercury, songwriting is a form of survival, a means of finding clarity in an often cruel world. It’s everything Kerr has known dating back to the day 22 years ago when Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” blasted as she was born.
Are you rocking with this one?
