#michael morley

[gentilfarfalletta]

Michael Morley, Boogie Wonderland, 2017, Oil on canvas, 60 x 90 cm

[indieephemera]

Flying Nun Records 1993 calendar featuring the month of September as illustrated and designed by Michael Morley of The Dead C, Gate and Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos.

We’ve turned the page from Jane Dodd’s August spread to this decidedly starker one by Michael Morley who, like all of the contributors to this calendar, are also musicians affiliated in some way with Flying Nun. If you're familiar with the music of Michael Morley's various projects, you might expect his design contribution to the Flying Nun calendar to look something like this: spare, abstract, strangely compelling.

TIL from the bio on the back: He wrote (and sang) the a-side of the lone 7″ single by The Weeds, a Dunedin supergroup indeed, Robert Scott (The Bats), Shayne Carter (Straitjacket Fits) and Wayne Elsey (Doublehappys), among others.

The other tidbit in that paragraph was more puzzling than illuminating. I am curious as to why he needed to “save Port Chalmers from being turned from a nice little town into a large pile of woodchips on a wharf.” When I was there in 2016 to see The Clean, I learned it was quite a popular cruise port, with tourists helping to fuel the downtown of small retail shops. But I reckon it was quite different 23 years prior.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

The Righteous Yeah, “gimme gimme gimme.” Oiseau de Paradis, 2018. 

[merzbow-derek]

POST-SCRIPTUM 937

PROVENCE ANTIQUE

The Dead C en concert. Michael Morley. Bruce Russell. Robbie Yeats. Photos : Pierre Faure (La Morte Young, Sun Stabbed, Nappe)

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“Even at its most structured, The Dead C. consistently has a sound so involving that it has a meditative quality.”  - DAN VALLOR

XPRESSWAY PILE=UP, PART 1 by DAN VALLOR

POPWATCH #9  Summer 1998 (pages 47 & 48)

LESLIE GAFFNEY & MR. LESLIE GAFFNEY, Publishers & Editors

The entirety of Dan’s Xpressway history is available in viewable form as a lovingly (i.e., much better than FRR’s) scanned PDF with one simple click...you’ll never believe what happens next! 

DAN VALLOR is well regarded as a musician, archivist and all around good human by those who know. He’s the producer of those essential GAME THEORY reissues Omnivore put out the past few years, but also works under the name CLARINETTE/KLARINETTE and has a brand new long player coming out on Feeding Tube Records on 3/24/17!

Order CLARINETTE’s The Now Of Then  at Feeding Tube or Forced Exposure

Byron Coley summarizes Dan Vallor’s work: “In the 15 years since Thurston and I released the first Clarinette LP, Haze (Ecstatic Yod), Dan Vallor has continued to produce music unabated. Most of it has been released in very limited editions (on CDRs, cassettes and lathes), but it has been a consistently cool flow of drone accrual and invention from a guy we still sorta think of as pop-oriented. Dan’s best known work probably remains his archival activities inside the archives of the late songwriting genius, Scott Miller, although others may know him from his efforts to catalog the output of the NZ lathe underground. Clarinette is a long running solo project that began in the ’80s, then went dormant until early in the 21st Century. The music is largely based on electric guitar huzz and hum, but there are plenty of sound events that pop up throughout the record, disturbing and enriching the surface with sproings, rasps and groons. The pieces on The Now of Then are all fairly reflective, and probably more suitable to stoned drifting than freak dancing, but hey — it never pays to second guess audience reaction. If you feel the urge to freak, so be it. Clarinette’s music definitely twangs the freak register. Who are we to say you should remain seated?” (2017)

An overview of Bruce Russell’s Xpressway at Audio Culture: “’Bruce Russell’s catch cry was ‘we know what’s good for you’,” [Stephen] Kilroy says. ‘And he could talk to it in an intellectual or artistic kind of way and justify it. People knew to trust Bruce; if it’s on Xpressway it must be good’.”

Bruce Russell’s daughter, Olive Russell, made a short film documentary about him in 2013 and called it 27 Minutes With Mr. Noisy!

Bruce Russell’s list of classic records from…ALLEY OOP Number 7 1989/1990, Paul McKessar, Editor

Interview with Bruce Russell circa 2013 published 2016 by DM Friesen 

MICHAEL MORLEY at bandcamp 

The Dead C. site

[merzbow-derek]

POST-SCRIPTUM 934

DES OMBRES, DES LUMIÈRES, DES FIGURES

Disque-objet signé Michael Morley (Gate, The Dead C), au-dessus du lathe-cut de Jean-François Pauvros et Jean-Marc Montera en duo. Chez Pierre Faure (La Morte Young, Sun Stabbed, Nappe).

[merzbow-derek]

POST-SCRIPTUM 946

YOU WANNA IMPRESS CHRISTGAU

The Dead C., 2018: Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats. Photos: Pierre Faure (La Morte Young, Sun Stabbed, Nappe, pFeM)

[merzbow-derek]

POST-SCRIPTUM 815

FÊTE DES MÈRES 2017, B77 & BRUCE RUSSELL

Depuis la dernière édition du Festival Densités où les deux partageaient la même affiche, Erik Minkkinen (Sister Iodine) et Pierre Faure (Nappe, Sun Stabbed, La Morte Young), aux guitares électriques et effets assortis, jouent parfois ensemble. Comme le jour de la fête des mères 2017, à Grenoble, au 102, où un concert est simultanément enregistré sur support numérique et Revox B77. Le lendemain, une première cassette audio est éditée dans l'urgence, à treize copies. Les jaquettes sont réalisées avec les affiches du concert (littéralement ”taillées” dedans), et le son provient du support numérique. Sur le second tirage, cette fois sorti par Dysmusie (Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore, Jean-Marc Montera, La Morte Young, Drone Electric Lust, Christine Mannaz-Dénarié), les versions enregistrées sur Revox sont utilisées, légèrement modifiées et remixées, avec manipulations de la bande elle-même, notamment sur le dernier morceau, inédit. Une bien belle cassette (artwork : Pierre Faure), par des enfants de Thurston Moore et Lee Ranaldo, comme de Bruce Russell et Michael Morley, voire Donald Miller et Masayuki Takayanagi.

Superbe et à commander via Dysmusie, voire bientôt chez Metamkine.

( La Morte Young, par là )