Mercir welcomes you to its digital world

Mercir speaks another language.

Sit in on a Mercir practice, and you don't hear, "Dude, that drum solo needs to be bigger," or "Hey, man, can you give me a little more jangle in the guitar?" — as you might with many Seattle bands.

In Mercir-land, you hear things like:

"That synth loop — can it drop out?"

"Can you trigger an empty pad there?"

"We need to start again — my screen saver screwed that up."

Vastly different from your average Strokes-worshipping garage band, Mercir is an electronic band that largely lives in a digital world. Keyboards, laptops, synth loops, samples ... Mercir even has a lead singer named Zadok, which sounds like a futuristic computer-age name (but really is Hebrew for "righteous").

With its second recording now finished, Mercir is one of a handful of talented Seattle acts with CD-release shows this week. Hypatia Lake, the Minus 5, Trespassers William and Datri Bean also launch CDs in the coming nights.

Mercir plays from "Windchimes and Landmines," a self-released EP, at 9 p.m. Saturday at Chop Suey ($8). The band also has a free show at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Queen Anne Easy Street Records.

In September 2004, Mercir released "As Small as the Center" — back then as trio Joel Eby, Colin Johnson and Zadok Wartes (the latter goes by his first name). Neal Vickers has since joined Mercir, adding a second guitar (to Zadok's) and occasional cello.

Eby plays the keyboard, and Johnson ricochets between a laptop, bass-keyboard and turntable.

Mercir is probably as close as any Seattle band has come to sorting through the musical clues of Radiohead. Mercir is still evolving, a young band with a highly promising start, and (one hopes) a long way to go.

On "Windchimes," Zadok displays a powerfully emotional singing style, alternating between cool and mournful — perhaps losing a battle to remain detached.

In a casual conversation, the singer can shift from sarcastic-deflective to quietly intense. There's a lot going on in this clean-cut, ruddy young man of medium build. Similarly, "Windchimes and Landmines" might be only six songs long, but it is rich and complex, with much more going on musically and lyrically than most full-length releases.

"Another Wrong to Right" starts off the CD, with electro-glitches and piano notes. Evolving into forward-moving, quick-time beats, and with the recurring phrases "they'll never catch us," at first listen it sounds optimistic. Not so, says Zadok, who writes all the lyrics. He says he wrote the song while "I was going through a real intense relationship — it wasn't very fun." He cites the line "when my analyst is the same as whom I sleep with" as a key ...

"Things Fall Apart" has a spy-movie soundtrack feel to it, with lyrics suggesting a 3 a.m. mental replay of a flamed-out relationship. "Millions and lovers no answers uncovered," it concludes. "You don't need to solve it."

On a recent Tuesday night, Mercir was practicing at Eby's house; he lives with his pregnant wife on a quiet, dead-end street in Shoreline, yet doesn't have to worry much about neighbors complaining about noise. Mercir doesn't have a drummer — rather shocking, in drum-heavy Seattle — and has unusually quiet practices. The instruments, laptops and turntables are plugged in to a master soundboard, and the band members hear each other via headphones. Only the vocals project much.

It adds to the underground/insider flavor of this band, in a way — they are connected to each other through a mixing board, for the most part bypassing the outside world.

Just the same, they don't want to be too obscure or underground.

"Our goal is to be an electronic-music band, but be accessible," said Eby.

Beginning with its CD-release show, Mercir will find out just how much Seattle wants to access it, and how much this town wants to learn a new language.

• Hypatia Lake cranks up its new stampede-of-sounds album " ... And We Shall Call Him Joseph" at 10 tonight at the Crocodile Café ($8). This CD picks up where Hypatia Lake's last concept album left off; the band takes its name from a fictional town, and its songs explore the town's characters.

It's "Twin Peaks" meets Pink Floyd, as guitarist Lance Watkins leads an intense wall of sonic layers. A couple dazzling cuts from the album — including "Breathe Motionless," a cacophony that calls to mind Pink Floyd's mind-crunching "On the Run" — can be heard at myspace.com/hypatialake.

"Fishes vs. Lines" has some doo-wop that melts into hard guitars; elsewhere, Watkins' quivering vocals call to mind the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev.

Though the psychedelic/shoe-gaze sound is reminiscent of other bands, the Hypatia Lake lyrical approach is wildly original.

"The gist of the new album," Watkins explained via e-mail, "is that it focuses on the life of Joseph Bigsby, a character that appears in the first record on a song called the 'Goddamn Factory and the Cog N' Wheel Day,' in which he instigates a rebellion at the town's candy factory ... so the record basically plays out as scenes from Joseph's life as he lays dying on the factory floor, in those last introspective moments of his life ... "

As for the music, Watkins feels his band — Randall Skrasek, Shane Browning and Dave Foley — let it all ride: "There are moments when we went for combining the Beach Boys with Cher and Dr. Dre ... "

If Watkins and company can come anywhere near matching the "Joseph" recording at their live show, those who crowd the Crocodile will have a cruise down Hypatia Lake.

• If you don't know anything about Trespassers William, this might make you take notice: Dave Fridmann — who has recorded Mercury Rev and Mogwai, in addition to the Flaming Lips — produced TW's latest album, "Having." Singer Anna-Lynne Williams dazzles in her laid-back way on "Having," which the Southern California band recorded in Seattle — and liked it here so much, according to their publicist, they stayed.

TW has a CD-release show at 10:30 p.m. Sunday at Belltown's Rendezvous ($5). Sound check them at myspace.com/trespasserswilliam.

• Scott McCaughey's Minus 5 — the Rolling Stones of garage bands — has a CD-release show for "The Gun Album" at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Crocodile ($15, with Robyn Hitchcock). As usual, McCaughey is joined by fellow Seattleites Peter Buck and Bill Rieflin; Colin Meloy of the Decemberists has joined the band for this tour.

The New York Times recently summed up the Minus 5 as "a supergroup that just wants to be a bar band."

• If you can use a break from the norm, check out Datri Bean, a talented, off-the-beaten-path singer. She'll perform songs — including the leisurely, evocative title track — from her self-produced "Slow Down Summertime" at 9 p.m. Saturday at Ballard's Conor Byrne Pub ($5). Bean, who says she was "raised in a rodeo family on the plains of Wyoming," ranges from Americana to classic jazz.

She came here from Austin, and this delightful anomaly (sounding very 1920s, at times) is another nice addition to the Seattle soundscape. For a listen, go to www.datribean.com.

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com