I have yet to hear a project involving Jonathan Merenivitch that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. Whether it’s the soulful pop and rock he helped create with Janelle Monáe and Tendaberry, the arty punk of local mainstays Shepherds, or the wild Big Star/Three Six Mafia mash-ups he conjures as Big Star Mafia, Merenivitch has always shown an ear for the bold and intriguing. Much of that stems from his own innate curiosity and willingness to set aside boundaries. Sure, he’s proven adept at working within the confines of various genres. But Merenivitch’s best work seems to emerge when he stretches those lines and barriers into beguiling new tracts to experiment within.

Working as Thalmus, Merenivitch has sought to reinterpret some of his favorite artists under the lens of country-western music. His last album, Low Music, was a cover of the first side of David Bowie’s seminal Low LP, delivered, as Merenivitch puts it, in a “high lonesome way.” With his next record, however, he hopes to push the country cover envelope even further. Entitled Midnight Country, the upcoming EP will feature a few originals, as well as countryfied renditions of songs by Thundercat, Sonic Youth, Anita Baker, and Rae Sremmurd. Although the record has been some time in the making, it’s just one in a series of recordings the prolific artist has been aiming to complete.

“This project is inspired by the continuous production delays on my debut country LP Music of the Oppressors that I’ve been working on with [producer and engineer] Graham Tavel for the past few years,” Merenivitch explains. “Every time I try to finish it some calamity or life shit pops up and pushes things further back. With this latest pandemic inspired delay, I started learning how to record myself and started a bunch of records in varying states of completion including my country cover of the first side of Bowie’s Low, an 80’s R&B record, re-recordings of the first songs I ever wrote as a teenager, something I’ve been describing as ‘Evil Soul,’ and this country cover record. I tried to choose songs that fit my particular tastes of noisy rock, R&B, and hip-hop. Songs that I could radically change to the point that they would be relatively unrecognizable.”

Today, we’re excited to bring you the premiere of “Pharaoh Sings the Blues,” one of the original tracks on Midnight Country. On the front end, the energetic cut maintains a classic feel, landing somewhere between a rollicking freight train jam and a Woody Guthrie folk singalong. By the time it reaches its climactic end, however, the song has managed to incorporate the piercing screech of a noisy guitar and a cathartic swell of gang vocals. That final burst gives “Pharaoh Sings the Blues” a more biting edge, a collectively raised fist against the ravenous appetites of the ruling class.

If the title didn’t tip you off, the song wryly exposes the corrosive truth about the wealthy and power-mad: nothing is ever enough. No matter how much they possess, they’ll always want more. As a result, the most mundane of inconveniences become a source of disappointment and resentment. Or as the chorus plainly puts it: “I want it all / But I’ve got everything.”

According to Merenivitch, the song was the final one he wrote for the EP. He was struggling to put the finishing touches on the record when he stumbled across a piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic. I won’t get into the details of the article but suffice it to say it involves race, the Civil War (specifically the Confederate army’s flight from Richmond, Virginia), and a damning assessment of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which Coates describes as “another story about the blues of Pharaoh.” It’s well worth a read. As for the new Thalmus single? Well, it’s damn good too.

Listen below.

The Midnight Country EP is out Oct. 1 via Bandcamp.

More Info
Bandcamp: thalmus.bandcamp.com
SoundCloud: @thalmus-music
Instagram: @thalmusmusic
Twitter: @thalmusmusic