let’s say i’m quite excited about this new batch of morc-releases that have come out today. boduf songs, annelies monseré and karina esp.that’s solid.
—> www.morctapes.com
MORC ZINE
Rivulets and Codeine shows
ok. rivulets is opening for codeine on a few us-dates. but for my point of view, more important: rivulets is touring as a threepiece for the first time in the benelux-area. the rivulets-album ‘we’re fucked’ from last year was recorded in this line-up, and it turned out to be a great album.
We are pretty sure you guys are excited about those Codeine reunion shows right? …of course you are. We are too and specially when they have asked our friend Nathan Amudson (Rivulets) to open some shows for them in the states.
Rivulets will be opening for Codeine in Seattle and Portland,…
true widow kicked of their first european tour last thursday, and we got to see them yesterday at the 4ad club in Diksmuide. unfamiliar with the band before, it was a very nice surprise: a tight mix of stoner-doom sounds, with plenty of refences to the slowcore and shoegaze-area, early Codeine in particular.
they’re around for two more weeks, with plenty of shows in the uk, belgium/netherlands/germany. highly recommended.
and if you can’t see them live: the new record As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth turned out to be excellent to listen to early in the morning, but i can easily imagine listening to it for the rest of the day.
“ In fact, we have a new song called “The Apostate” and there’s a lot of kind of repetitive chanting in the song. For some reason I was doing this and I started saying her name over and over and now she’s become a part of the song. I’m singing “Lady Gaga” in the song, over and over (laughs). In a way, I’m invoking her demon spirit, praying for her to come down and fuck the demon brother inside me that is singing the song.
Michael Gira in Village voice
i still think it will be an amazing track
i still think it will be an amazing track
180°
from:
arab strap: first big weekend
to:
arab strap: fucking little bastards
hard to think of two songs that are so completely different, yet so related to eachother.
In the Twin Peaks scene where Leland dances with his daughter Laura’s portrait, the glass in her frame was not intended to break. Ray Wise accidentally broke it while they were shooting, he cut his hands and started bleeding, but he continued on with the scene and made it a part of it. This is the prop with Ray’s blood still intact.
2010 in concerts
as i mentioned before, i’m not to keen on making an end of year list - i tend to forget things, or haven’t heard a lot of records i should have heard. so not a ‘real’ 2010-list, but i’m safe about these things:
favorite live show:
liturgy (incubate festival, little devil, tilburg)
encredibly ferocious, adventurous and athmospheric set, making me look forward to their upcoming album on thrill jockey, and their show on roadburn 2011. what swans could have been like if they grew up listening to drones and black metal.
to give an idea: this video was shot a few days earlier, during the same tour.
other shows i enjoyed from start to finish (in chronological order)
beautiful band (bunker, brussel + kinky star, gent)
om (grand mix, tourcoing)
pillars and tongues (clos des milliardaires, brussel)
the doozer (kraak festival, netwerk, aalst)
hellvete (slachthuis, gent)
eyehategod (minus one, gent)
tomoko sauvage (les ateliers claus, brussel)
liars (botanique, brussel)
richard youngs (pauluskerk, tilburg)
drekka, vollmar, elephant micah and annelies monseré (bluesanct fest, rachels cafe, bloomington)
holy sons (the bishop, bloomington)
trembling bells and alasdair roberts (le guess who festival, utrecht)
swans (ab, brussel)
show that should have been stopped by one of the promotors, or the audience
bügsküll (villa drashhoek, gent)
best albums
ask me in 2014, ok?
One year after Rowland S Howard passed away
‘Sometimes people are ready to go because they have been sick for a long time, but Rowland really wanted to live. Things were going well for him outside his health and he wanted to take advantage of that, and he was very disappointed that he wasn’t well enough to do so’
Mick Harvey
The best proof that Rowland S Howard was doing well - outside his health - is probably the album Pop Crimes, that came out in 2009 in Australia, but we had to wait to hear it untill this year.
Howard doesn’t sound like the angry young man from The Birthday Party anymore (fortunately), but Pop Crimes was definately one of the best records we got to hear in 2010. the tone of his guitar was not as piercing anymore, but his melodies still were.
A Girl called Jonny is an awkward opening track, not in the least because of the contribution of Jonnine Standish, the singer of HTRK, a band with whom Howard was working the past couple of years. The result sounds a traditional pop song, being it one with an unusual sarcastic tone - a tone that stays there throughout the entire record, the track Wayward man probably being the best example. Though Howard’s version of Talk Talk’s Life’s what you make it, guarantees a unique listening experience as well.
a personal favorite is ‘Avé Maria’, unusually quiet, and the part that starts around the 2’40 mark alone is worth picking up this album.
Pop Crimes could have been the best comeback-album in years, unfortunately, it was Howard’s goodbye album.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
in the early 2000’s, the christmas holidays were something to look out for, because the portland-based duo The Iditarod made a ‘yuletide’-album every year. in 2000 and 2001, that was a self-released cdr, in 2002 a collaboration with sharron kraus, and in 2003, yuletide was their testament, a 2cd set compiling rare material.
at morc hq, we have a particular soft spot for the cdr that carin wagner and jeffrey alexander made in 2001. it’s a great mix of songs sung by carin, the more experimental stuff by jeffrey, and perfect string arrangements by matt everett and margie wienk (of fern knight).
the track you can here in this post is Winter’s spell, probably the key track on this album.
