Pitchfork

It ain't Fiona Apple-crazy, but the title of Nicolai Dunger's new record is still pretty nuts. On March 14, Zoë/Rounder will release Here's My Song, You Can Have It...I Don't Want It Anymore/Yours 4-Ever, Nicolai Dunger, which the Swedish alt-folkie produced and recorded with psych-pop stalwarts Mercury Rev. Ah, must've been the acid talking, then.

Dunger has previously collaborated with such luminaries as Will Oldham, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, the Concretes, Calexico, Silver Jews/Sonic Youth/Jukeboxer drummer Timothy Barnes, the jazz trio E.S.T., and Dungen's Reine Fiske. So Mercury Rev are just a notch in his bedpost. But he's just a line in a song.

Here's his songs:

01 My Time Is Now
02 Hunger
03 Slaves (We're Together Like)
04 Someone New
05 White Wild Horses
06 Tell Me
07 Country Lane
08 Way Up High
09 The Year of the Love and Hurt Cycle
10 Harp's Coming In
11 ...and Falling Out

"The Year of the Love and Hurt Cycle" is an eight-and-a-half-minute epic in twelve parts-- one for each month of the titular year. We'd like to tell you that the song ends with the revelation that the midget is the baby's father, but that would be a lie.

Here's My Song was originally released in 2004 on Dolores Recordings/Virgin Records. Lots of stuff has happened to Dunger since then: he's toured with Sufjan Stevens, put out a three-LP box set, recorded his first Swedish-language album (Nicolai Dunger sjunger Edith Södergran"), and contributed a track to a compilation called "Jävla Kritiker" ("Fucking Critics") in which artists wrote songs in response to their reviews. (God, we hope nobody decides to run with that idea in America.)

Dunger has no plans to tour at the moment, but he will play two American shows with members of Mercury Rev-- once in New York City later this month, and once at SXSW.

Dates:

02-25 Luleå, Sweden - Luleå University (solo)
02-28 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
03-17 Austin, TX - 18th Floor at Capitol Place (No Depression showcase) *
04-12 Dublin, Ireland - Douglas Hyde Gallery at Trinity College (solo)

* with Robyn Ludwick, Sarah Borges, Tim O'Reagan, Bruce Robinson

As for Mercury Rev, well, we don't really know what else they've got going on right now. Sorry.

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