Browse by Label: MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Salamander
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 003CD

1999 release. ISAN's equipment must be inhabited by proper salamanders, pattering constantly over circuits, stumbling over wires. Robin and Toe, the two mates operating this "Integrated Services Analogue Network" (ISAN), appreciate the salamander's help and dedicated this whole album to their little friend. A couple of years ago, they both met in Leicester, discovered a common interest in "using dodgy old keyboards to make a dodgy old noise" and started recording together. Mixing the simple beauty of melodies generated with analog keyboards and the bumpy, quirky rhythms old drum machines create when you switch them on, ISAN produce some of the most irresistible pop anthems the whole family can hum along to.

Artist:	HERRMANN & KLEINE
Title:	Kickboard Girl EP
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	MORR 007EP

Repressed. "Kickboard Girl" features tinkling beats with an almost anthem-like approach. It beats like the movement of arms and legs in water, and then the synthesizer whispers. "Kickboard Girl (Take Care At The Corner)" covers the peaceful silence with tiny buds of sound before "May In Fall" triggers the euphoric pulse of an old, long-forgotten breakbeat extravaganza you thought you'd never feel again. The rest of the tracks are new melodies that will take your soul prisoner.

Artist:	KLEINE, CHRISTIAN
Title:	Valis
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	MORR 011CD

2002 release. First things first: Christian Kleine, Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist and software crack, prefers music as a means of communication. Following two 7"s, remixes for Bomb The Bass and Múm, forays into the great unknown with Herrmann & Kleine as well as his debut album Beyond Repair on allied label City Centre Offices, for Valis Kleine has now rediscovered his love for analog instruments -- a move that shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise considering his diverse musical background. As a subtle homage to heroes from Eno to Boards of Canada, from Seefeel to Pan American, on Valis, Kleine exploits his extended range of instruments to refine delicately layered beats, to breathe a little soul into chilly electronics and coalesce melancholic fragility with persistent melodies, folky electronica gliding past us like a wintery landscape. But definition doesn't suit Kleine, his work defies any categorization according to genres or arrangements. Though computer-programmed, Valis does not address our head or legs, but unfolds its hidden warmth only in our hearts.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Putting The Morr Back In Morrissey: A Morr Music Compilation
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 012CD

Repress of this year 2000 release, the first Morr Music compilation. Music without the world could possibly not survive, a sonic field trip of people who'd stay together forever, spend hours on the phone, exchanging soundfiles and ideas. Here, Berlin is as important as Cologne, Munich, Toronto, Southend-On-Sea, Vienna and Leipzig. ISAN are remixing The Notwist and vice versa. Bernhard Fleischmann gives Blond a treat, Flowchart works on a Lali Puna track, Tied & Tickled Trio is de-jazzing Kandis. The participant list reads like the who's who of electronic scouts. But, the remixes are only one aspect. The double-CD also features new, unreleased tracks from old and new Morr people. There's Manufracture, who has a brother called Phonem, Herrmann & Kleine, Christian Kleine, Arovane and Solvent. Other artists include: Kevin & Paul, Styrofoam, E*Vax, Phonem, Wechsel Garland, Hessen, Schneider TM and Micha Acher.

Artist:	SOLVENT
Title:	Solvent City
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 013CD

Repressed. Hello, and welcome to Solvent City. Starting from the top floor of the Suction records tower, we see honorary citizen Jason Amm smiling down upon the city that he has built. With some assistance from fellow luminaries Lowfish and Skanfrom, Solvent has constructed a warm and inviting cityscape, bathed in the radiating glow of vintage synthesizers bordering the city's perimeter. "Some Assembly Required" is the theme song, accompanying us along the highway to the city's industrial zone. Here we see a team of Canadian snowrobots working around the clock to the track's motorik pulse. These bouncy synth-pop melodies inspire great productivity in our robots. As we approach the downtown core, we hear "Solvent City" booming from cars, bars and beatboxes. It's a big hit with the city's youngsters, bumping Depeche Mode out of the #1 position in the pop charts. "A Panel of Experts" is a song for the suburbs. This is the lushest track in town, with dusty home-organ beats and a choir of heartbroken synthesizers. Our citizens are not simple robots; we grow introspective with age, and we have music to reflect this. Let's stop the train here and spend some time to learn about the people that make this city tick. After returning from a busy day at the City Centre Offices, our robots head over to the supermarket. Here we find Berlin immigrant Skanfrom offering a fine, remixed selection of "Frozen Food," seasoned with majestic melodies and otherworldly bleeps. Once at home, citizens will turn on their desktop tape players for a study session in synth-pop architecture. "Built-in Microphone," with its octave-hopping bass lines and perfectly formed microscopic melodies, is a compulsory course, along with Vince Clarke 101 and Moog-history. Solvent City is well-known for its stunning attention to detail, and the citizens make every effort to educate themselves in the fineries of classic robot-pop. Concluding our monorail tour, we'll wind down with the icy beauty of Lowfish's take on "A Panel of Experts." This remix picks lost vocal snippets out of the airwaves and places them in the frosty landscape of our city's night sky. Beyond Solvent City there's only barren land -- littered with clicks, cuts, and cold digital noise. Make sure you stay within the city limits. This train is headed downtown -- please put on your dancing shoes.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	EA1 EA2 (Remix)
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 014CD

2000 release. Since the mid-'90s, more and more boundaries between rock, electronica, and jazz have been broken down. The Tied & Tickled Trio is known for pushing genre mix-ups even a bit further. Combining sampling and editing techniques with traditional (collective) improvising, this band works like a strong but sophisticated machine. Several layers of soundscapes and (programmed as well as drum stick driven) beat patterns are created for elaborate jazz saxophone tunes to surf on top of them. The tenor sax provides an edgy element that typical post-rock outfits lack in their featureless instrumental crawl through wide spread sound textures. The Tied & Tickled "Trio" consists of more than three musicians. There are six permanent members. Apart from the acclaimed jazz saxophonist Johannes Enders, who comes from a rather academic background, they can be seen as the core group of a Weilheim, Germany based music scene, which in the course of the last decade has established a rich and promising DIY-avant garde. Bands like The Notwist, Village of Savoonga, Potawatomi, Console or Loopspool, to name but a few, worked out very individual approaches to indie-rock, noise, jazz and electronics. When the Tied & Tickled Trio's first album appeared on Kollaps/Payola three years ago, it coincided with a general atmosphere of open-mindedness. Back then, more and more people had started to be interested in all kinds of musical styles and genres and their ears tended to cope with all sorts of strange and abstract noises. Re: EA1 EA2 (Remix) -- usually a remix results from rather extended editing sessions, but in the end it can be compared with an improvised version of an "original" track, whose elements, structures and textures it re-works and re-uses. As the Tied & Tickled Trio is very much involved in jazz aesthetics and improvising techniques, a remix compilation seems to fit extremely well in the band's discography. EA1 EA2 was released in 1999. Several producers were asked for a reinterpretation of the material. Confronted with the density of the original tracks, they had no choice but either translating the complexities of the collective powers of concentration into complexities of loop layers, or simply concentrating on and pointing out single elements. Remixers include Opiate, Christof Kurzmann, Max.Ernst, Console, Wechsel Garland, Kandis and Gustavo Lamas.

Artist:	GARLAND, WECHSEL
Title:	Wechsel Garland
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 016CD

2000 release. Jörg Follert was Wunder, now he is Wechsel Garland. Great expectations? ("Große Erwartungen") One can easily trace the atmospheric relationship between the two projects -- the synthesis of lightness and deep melancholy. A combination that is nearly impossible. How then? ("Wie Also?") Like an airplane, a butterfly ("Falter") glides through the valley of deep sounds in the beginning, only to take a rest between melodic-percussive patterns made of minor scales later on. In a more accelerated and abstract way Steve Reich achieved that before, but here the music is much slower and far more intimate. It says: Come! ("Komm") There! -- softly pointing at YOU with its forefinger. Deep inside your body there's a resonance. That's the place where the floating and ringing sounds of the marimba, the Fender Rhodes piano or the xylophone can vibrate. Their echos will remain. Like insects ("Wie Insekten") bass sounds buzz, like dust in the light ("Staub Im Licht") flutes, Hammond B3 and melotrone cover a soundscape that can be overlooked from any perspective. A peculiar idyll. With no star ("Ohne Stern") in the sky, nameless, removing, but even more real ("Wirklicher"): at least Wechsel Garland's music isn't based on samples anymore as with Wunder. There's no driving beats, but it's all rhythmic. Can you dance to it? Originally the music was composed due to an order from choreographer Gabrielle Staiger and had its première under the title "This Very Moment" with the Arazzo dance ballet at the Brotfabrik, Bonn, in February 2000. By later extending the tracks, adding important details and inventing ingenious song titles, the debut of Wechsel Garland was finally born. It's music you'll find between the shelves in record stores; music that has to create its listeners -- and that is only a small step along the way ("Viertel des Weges").

Artist:	MANUAL
Title:	Until Tomorrow
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 019CD

2001 release. After an amazing release on the Hobby Industries label, Manual brings us with his debut on Morr Music even further melodies and reasons for picking up the guitar from the corner (again). Indeed, Manual masters it amazingly well and overwhelms the listener with strong and soft melodies, soundscapish fragments and fluffy noises which remind us of bands like To Roccoco Rot, and the Chicago scene. The combination of classical acoustic instruments, his skills on the guitar/bass/piano, the droning and sweeping synth sounds and crackling electronic beats fixes broken pieces together and lets you drift away in memories. Manual songs are downtempo with plenty of space for the big melodies he presents. Listening to it, we are reminded of dewy asphodels in the spring. Sunny and dreamy, Manual draws a flowery picture of overwhelming color within his well-structured songs. No doubt, he has the potential to convince fans of modern electronica and Hoboken neo-folk and bring them all together to smell the buds of spring in the garden of Jim O'Rourke.

Artist:	MUM
Title:	Please Smile My Noise Bleed
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 020CD

Features two new songs by Múm and six remixes by Styrofoam, ISAN, Phonem, Christian Kleine, Arovane and B. Fleischmann. Not to be confused with the Múm Remixed album on Thule. In a way, it was only a matter of time before Múm would end up on Morr Music. Anyone who has had the pleasure of listening to the Icelandic quartet's celebrated debut album Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK, knows that Múm's "eye shutting-bicycle beats, sounds and melodies" would feel suitably at home with Morr. This record came to be raw for Múm, like a raw carrot. In a way, their machines wrote the music themselves, while Múm were playing around on a mountain, lying down, standing up, running around. When they came back they were surprised by their beauty. This is where things started looping and feedbacking and even the old mountain radio swam in with a few random words and murmurs. A very old distant friend joined in singing, but only for a split second. When the songs had recorded themselves on tape, Thomas sent them out to all his nice guys who made new pieces out of them, each one special. Christian Kleine's old mountain radio is playing a steady diet of old school electro pop. Eight-bit snare drums and a deep massaging sub-bass manage to put a headnoddingly near-perfect groove into Múm's delicacies. Styrofoam has the original Múm melodies spinning out of control while somewhere along the way, a vocoder and a steady kickdrum manage to sneak in. Bernhard Fleischmann makes a happy return with some splendid cut-up old school hip-hop action with the Múm girls humming along gently. Phonem turns Múm's clearcut melodies into shifting layers of grainy sound and deep textures, only to be interrupted by an ever-evolving broken beat. Arovane does what he does best: lush homemade synths and basement beats. ISAN contribute their dark and brooding "Cantena" mix -- all deep analog bass and persistently ringing bells with the original melody making only the vaguest of appearances.

Artist:	F.S.BLUMM
Title:	Mondkuchen
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 021CD

2001 release. Frank Schültge aka F.S.Blumm presents a multitude of lovely pop songs and atmospheric soundscapes. Mondkuchen seems like a colorful picture transformed into music, telling little stories in many layers. Its tension covers a wide field from crushed acoustic sound experiments to perfect pop tunes. Ingredients of his sound-kitchen are mainly acoustic instruments like piano, kalimba, vibes or guitars or more rare ones like an accordion. The musical result is in a way original, so that the popular namedropping doesn't help that much to describe F.S.Blumm's music. We still try it because we think there is a parallel to bands and projects like Gastr Del Sol or others who work on the combination of improvised elements with pop-approached structures. Likewise, when thinking about Wechsel Garland, it's hard to believe that F.S.Blumm is a one-man-project. It shows the many skills of a multi-instrumentalist, but the best thing is that he manages to sound like a perfectly tuned in orchestra, homogenous and well balanced. F.S.Blumm works with melodious sound, with deep buried memories and inner-mind visions, but at the same time his music is determined by timeless elegance and an amazing facility. The correlation of different instruments and beautiful simple melodies rule the sound. Experimental ideas just communicate with accessible and friendly music and Mondkuchen is a good example of how deep this combination can be without losing tension and humor.

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Lucky Cat
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 022CD

Released in 2001. ISAN love old analog electronic devices to make music, instruments from a time when synthesizers were developed in attics in air-conditioned offices, where hundreds of coding-slaves would program new organ-presets, were still an unknown phenomena. Equipment you not only need screwdrivers for, but also furniture polish. Synthesizers and drum-boxes, which were affordable even when they were manufactured and which rock bands with mellotrons and modular walls laughed at. Robin and Antony prove that these machines are capable of great things, too. With numerous releases -- preferably on 7" of course -- they managed to book reservations for front row seats in our record racks. Little melodies appear, dragging you along on their journey towards dawn, slowly unveiling their real inner-self, and banishing evil ghosts. Everything sounds more self-evident, lighter, more familiar, more personal and especially more lovable and adorable. It almost sounds like the happy studio cat.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Scary World Theory
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 023CD

Released in 2001. Valerie Trebeljahr has been quietly whittling away at her very own blueprint of pop music. Steering well clear of prevalent harmless geniality, her aim is to cleverly and intelligently dissect our perception of the world around us. Lali Puna have now become a fully-fledged band, carefully selecting band members (from Console, The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, Iso68, Fred Is Dead). Following their album debut Tridecoder, Scary World Theory achieves the perfect combination of pop and (personal) politics. Behind ostensibly shy, almost withdrawn vocals, Valerie is by no means coy about confronting the world's ambivalent status quo, bluntly documenting current conditions underneath putative fragility. And the music, too, demands our full attention. Between hummable chords and sometimes soothing, almost hypnotic monotony, each repetition discloses multi-layered complexity as well as cleverly hidden counterpoints. No matter if atmospheric, exuding classical warmth or quietly breathy -- again and again Lali Puna tear heartbreaking harmonies from the sparsest of arrangements.

Artist:	PHONEM
Title:	Ilisu
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 024CD

Ilisu is not an expansion on Phonem's previous output, nor a move towards greater complexity, but rather a purification, a clarification of what Phonem's previous releases were trying to communicate. Crispy crystal beats and minimal synth melodies don't battle it out but merely exist next to each other, like natural elements keeping each other in balance. And a perfect balance it is. Perfectionism also shows in Phonem's grainy sound design and carefully programmed beats, steeped in classic hip-hop rhythms but somehow always carefully balancing on the brink of collapse. A delicate balance. Seeping through the cracks are Phonem's never ending melodies. Steering away from classic song and theme structures, allowing melodies to develop in a linear way, free from their own history, no need to return. Melodies that are sometimes cold and icy, often clear and liquid. Something to hold onto while they bring the beat down. Since the release of Hydro Electric, Elliot Perkins has been playing live sets all over the planet, both as Phonem and as part of the expanded Beta Bodega collective, including appearances in the USA and Japan. Perkins has also released a 12" on Beta Bodega (as Spike) and a collaborative album with Berlin's Arovane on UK label Vertical Form. Ilisu could be considered the final part in a trilogy that started with Phonetik (Phonem's first release for Morr) and was expanded upon with Hydro Electric. Ilisu is a detailed album that demands detailed listening.

Artist:	LIMP
Title:	Orion
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 025LP

2002 release. LP version. Limp are inspired by intelligent electronica and Chicago rock, and are also self-confessed admirers and recyclers of "rock and pop elements from the '80s and '90s" (a universal red flag for any conscious human being) and innocently cite stadium largesse and touching pop moments of mainstream-compatible alternative phenomena as a way as to quell any critical protest in its infancy. Orion displays the fresh and differentiated influence of four musicians with their own electronica projects (Manual, Aerosol, Syntaks) in this perfectly-balanced interplay of classical instruments and digital aids. Ostensibly relaxed and dreamy, simultaneously as epic and stratified as Mogwai or selected snippets from Slowdive to Boards of Canada, Orion is not afraid to exploit incredible melodies for minutes on end. Contrasts blend and forget about their origin to lend the six tracks a continual narrative structure that sneakily conjures up vivid images.

Artist:	HERRMANN & KLEINE
Title:	Our Noise
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 026LP

2002 release. LP version. You know what it's like. You wander aimlessly through the streets, maybe trying to forget something, when all of a sudden the sun breaks through the clouds and turns everything into gold. In an instant, your mind will be completely absorbed by this light and you will have forgotten everything you wanted to forget. Our Noise has exactly this same effect. There are crucial points in these ten tracks where luminescent melodies appear from out of nowhere, pushing everything else aside. Subtle bass lines and beat structures perpetually move into rhythmic chaos, not bothering to conceal the fact that this is nothing less than glorious pop. Around this momentum swirls a dizzying complex of beats that range from calm to pulsating and September-warm. Right in the middle of this ever-flowing whole, you'll find a shining cover version of Slapp Happy's "Blue Flower," previously saved from obscurity by the likes of Mazzy Star and Pale Saints. On a blissfully piercing bed made out of thousands of guitars, sits the majestic and modest voice of singer Ariane Hensel. Thaddeus Herrmann and Christian Kleine prove that a sum consists of more than just the contents of its parts. This music comes from directions as diverse as hip-hop, '80s synth-pop and classic indie-rock. But it's not about an easy formula -- this is more like an interstation on a long personal path.

Artist:	MANUAL
Title:	Ascend
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 027CD

2002 release. Ascend, the title of Manual's second album, shows the way this music is going. At any time it is uplifting in a melancholic way, it directs into the inner self or into some far distant nowhere. All these emotional paradoxes stand in a tradition of many a great sound-sculptor starting with 4AD-acts such as Cocteau Twins, the swathing surrealism of My Bloody Valentine, the intense lethargy of Talk Talk up to the sheer beauty of Slowdive. With these traditions in mind, the music is carefully transferred into here and now while never losing a certain sunken quality. All those soothing, opalescent sounds may come from out of old analog synthesizers, but Jonas' indie-heart is still beating on the right side. One or the other subtle guitar part bears witness to that. Same goes for Limp, Jensen's other project in which he shares his vision with three friends to follow a similar path with different measures. Their debut album Orion is the perfect companion to Manual's body of work.

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Clockwork Menagerie
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 028CD

Repressed. This compilation of early material coming from long-out-of-print singles and compilations was a long time coming. Mostly because there should be many more people out there who should be able to listen to these tracks than those lucky few who were able to get the original copies in the short while they were available. These tunes seem to come from a different era when small labels like Earworm, Liquefaction Empire, Bad Jazz or Wurlitzer Jukebox were continually presenting interesting and exciting new bands, mostly on neatly packaged limited edition 7"s. The music ranges, depending on from out of whose vintage analog equipment it comes, between simple melodies on swinging, feather-weight beats and rhythmically complex and transparent sound installations. May this be the right balance between pop and art. Maybe like an unlikely mixture of Plone and Seefeel.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Blue Skied An' Clear - A Morr Music Compilation
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 030CD

Repressed. With his second, very intimate grasp of music's status quo (after Putting the Morr Back Into Morrissey) Thomas Morr again delves deep into his own musical history. Now that many electronic musicians have begun to (re-)discover guitars and especially the clever layering of My Bloody Valentine's finest tracks, Blue Skied an' Clear presents us with a truly loving homage to all-time favorites Slowdive. CD1 of this compilation allows label acts as well as guests (Komeit, Skanfrom, Múm etc.) to breathe new life into shoegazing with their carefully-crafted cover versions. Here long-time fans as well as new believers rediscover these damn fine songs, mingling them with their own substance while offering ample room to the ethereal, the audible silence of the originals. Inspired by Slowdive's output, even sworn instrumentalists like ISAN unearthed hidden vocal talents and CD2, with its collection of original tracks by Morr Music artists, hints at a similar return to classic band techniques. Other artists include: Future 3, ISAN, Lali Puna, Ulrich Schnauss, B.Fleischmann & Ms. John Soda, Limp, Solvent, Styrofoam, Manual, Herrmann & Kleine, Guitar, Populous and Icebreaker.

Artist:	MS. JOHN SODA
Title:	No P. Or D.
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 031CD

Ms. John Soda are Stefanie Böhm and Micha Acher, both part of the creative sphere around notable German label and distributor Hausmusik. It soon became clear that Ms. John Soda would become their "pop project": the melody, clarity, emotional directness and timelessness of song structures would supersede the importance of aural experimentation. At the same time they wanted to use classical instruments such as bass, guitar, drums and keyboards and they wanted to rock with a constant glance at the careful balance between instruments and electronics. If the need should arise to label Ms. John Soda "indietronics," then we should also resurrect the capital "I" in "Indie." Because it is here that one of the genre's sound ideals, "to rock without rocking" has been carefully, but determinedly, unearthed. This undoubtedly makes Ms. John Soda a Morr Music band project that dares to venture further out of the safe harbor of aural abstraction than any other and fulfills the old claim of creating a truly touching pop record.

Artist:	GUITAR
Title:	Sunkissed
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 032CD

2002 release. This much is known: Guitar, a culture junky relocated to the green void of the German Sauerland, requires neither introduction nor statement and uses this moniker with a healthy distance and dose of irony for his by now third musical project (besides majorly-distributed club hymns and his classically-influenced experimental output) to exhaustively experiment with guitar sounds. At the same time, with Sunkissed, he created an enthusiastic homage to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless period. A secret fan of the classic utopian thinkers, Guitar, too, explores the geography of expanses and shifting horizons in his output, keeping a distance to life while cherishing a fascination for even the smallest detail. He allowed the music of two years to boil down and evaporate, to reduce and grow again. Garnished with a generous portion of pop and lightened by the heavenly sighs of Donna Regina and Ayako from Tokyo, Sunkissed translates and transports its references into a euphoric presence.

Artist:	POPULOUS
Title:	Quipo
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 033CD

2002 release. Andrea Mangia comes from a small town in South-Apulia, an area which might be known better as the Italian boot's high heel. Using the PC, Andrea starts organizing and fusing his musical influences. Rock gradually falls into oblivion, making room for hip-hop and a subtle sensitivity about pop mechanics. After a while, Mangia's music moulds into a precise and reduced version of abstract electronica owing to Andrea's all time faves A Tribe Called Quest as it does to Phoenicia or Phonem. Looking for an artist moniker, the tiny adjective "populous" grabbed Andrea's attention, not because of its actual meaning, but rather its onomatopoeic qualities. "I loved that word immediately. It just sounded nice: two p's, two u's, two o's, including the word 'pop!'" Populous' personal Quipo now consists of the "ones and twos" a hip-hop DJ uses to rearrange the popcultural "goods in storage." It also consists of the "zeros and ones" used by a computer to synthesize new compounds from those elements. Thus, Populous' abstract soundscapes, his fragile melodies contrasted by quite physical beats add a new flavor to the Morr Music pie, which cannot be summed up by a convenient and bloated category like "indietronics" anymore, anyway.

Artist:	OPIATE
Title:	Sometimes EP
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD EP
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	MORR 035CD

2003 release. Thomas Knak has managed to come up with an EP of almost cinematic proportions, striking us all with a perfectly balanced relation of organic sounds, sampled instruments like acoustic guitars, flutes and piano as well as subtle digital manipulations and intricate beat programming. Knak knows how to provide his music with a spatial quality that clearly comes from his experience with dub as a production technique. At the same time, Opiate never runs the risk of drenching his compositions in confusing layers of delay and reverb. On the contrary: the EP's six tracks are as organized as they are emotionally touching.

Artist:	GUTHER
Title:	I Know You Know
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 038CD

2003 release. This band manages to update the kind of lo-fi indie-pop reminiscent of labels like Teen Beat or Slumberland. But Guther are definitely not a lo-fi outfit. The means of electronic production -- a computer, a synthesizer and a drum computer -- have clearly left their traces in their sound. Listening to the ten songs from Guther's debut, all of them display a certain immediacy, which on the one hand clearly comes from the very private setting I Know You Know has been recorded in. On the other hand, it also comes from the really short and spontaneous production process.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	Observing Systems
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 039CD

2003 release. With their third studio album Observing Systems, the Tied & Tickled Trio has delivered their most complex self-portrait of a freely-operating music collective. Altogether, the 15 pieces on Observing Systems, some of them not more than highly elaborate and articulate "ideas," form a very tight system itself -- based on musical references, different modi operandi and scientific research -- which reaches less and less for an unconditional formal unity. With Observing Systems, the Tied & Tickled Trio does refine the idea of "space," both sonic and spiritual, in which experiences and emotions echo, in a new and ultimately refreshing purity. Suddenly, what you hear becomes as important as the blanks in the music. In these regions of ruptures and uncertainties, a fantastic vision evolves, which leads the Trio through an intense and continuously inspiring musical past. In these ruptures, music history becomes lively again. Observing Systems is music without a center. As in the architectural concepts of "Tensegrity" by Buckminster Fuller, each track represents one component in this self-suspending, durable construction, a structure whose strength increases with lightness rather than the heaviness of its components: the album as a whole.

Artist:	MS. JOHN SODA
Title:	While Talking
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	MORR 040CD

Ms. John Soda are Stefanie Böhm (Couch) and Micha Acher (The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio). While Talking is both the study and result of constant exchange between human beings and it deals with communication in numerous ways: conversations that work and sometimes don't, contradictions, misunderstandings and the incapacity to make oneself understood as well as to fully understand someone else. The opener presents itself almost defiantly. Compared to the debut, the song's calm sections appear more epic, whereas the expressive elements seem to be even more "in your face." The spectrum of Stefanie Böhm's and Micha Acher's musical influences is more varied than before. They use anything ranging from distorted punk bass to psychedelic twang sounds. "If Someone Would Know," for example, is reminiscent of cruising through a desert by night just like in a David Lynch film. "I Think It Could Work, Marilyn" reanimates Marilyn Monroe and Elvis taking a walk up in the mountains. Although Ms. John Soda's expression has become more varied, Stefanie Böhm's charismatic and beguiling voice remains the central element in all the songs. Their ability to transform the entire range of human emotions into musical expression is breathtaking.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	Welcome Tourist
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 041CD

Welcome Tourist is not just a political statement. It also is a document of growth and refinement. Despite a more instrumental approach (in the classical sense), you will still find Bernhard Fleischmann hunched over his tiny groovebox, creating the most sumptuous harmonies. On this record, however, he lets his musical talents unfold (you'll hear him on piano, drums and vibraphone) and engages the support of others, which turns the once solo artist into a band frontman. In harmony with this functional shift, the music also undergoes a change, which shines through on "Le Desir" and "Sleep," which have been previously released, but now feature new vocals by Charhizma label owner, Christof Kurzmann. Compared to Bernhard Fleischmann's earlier work, Welcome Tourist might not appear as accessible. Bursts of noise and distortion have now become as important as the trademark melodies circling through his songs. Bernhard does not want this to be seen as a (political) expression of uneasiness. Rather, it just refers to his ongoing love affair with noisy guitar bands. Working with different musicians had a direct influence on the outcome of each song. Usually, a groovebox composition by Bernhard marks the start of the mutual working process. The initial composition retreats more and more during the development of the final piece until there's nothing left but a shadow, a blurry trace, that nonetheless leaves its mark on the result.

Artist:	MAN'SBESTFRIEND
Title:	The New Human Is Illegal
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 043CD

Until now, Sole has stuck to rapping and hasn't released any of his own productions. This is about to change with The New Human Is Illegal, the first record Sole has done on a label outside of Anticon since Bottle Of Humans dropped. Man'sbestfriend is the impulsive and self-indulgent side of Sole running shifty guitars through broken reel-to-reels, rusted keyboards over compressed Radioshack mics, recorded on an old ADAT and some on laptop. Most beats have been constructed on a DR sampler, and then further chopped up on the computer. The lyrics have been written out the window on various tours in alien places, where some songs have been developed from freestyles. The music was made purely for fun with an "experimental" spirit, with additional music and assistance from fellow Anticon members Odd Nosdam, Jel, and Telephone Jim Jesus.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Faking The Books
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 044CD

Faking The Books, Lali Puna's third album, is a maverick display of pop sensibilities applied to a world gone wrong. All the ingredients are there: the killer hooks, the subliminal fusion of generic undertones, Valerie Trebeljahr's alluring vocal delivery that at first soothes the senses and at second glance portrays the system in all its celluloid, deceptive glory. Faking The Books is all about the signs of our times, inverting the Zeitgeist into something that not only explores the musical fusion of raucous instrumentation and layered, soothing production, but that also tells its story with a multi-colored grip on our peculiar reality. The songs direct themselves with a pop conviction that isn't afraid to mix vintage synths, vocal effects, garage drum workouts, Detroit strums, carefully arranged strings, electronic bass drums and a homage to all the bands that have paved the way for such diversity.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Faking The Books
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP+12"
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	MORR 044LP

LP version. Morr Music re-releases this vinyl album in a new configuration including the Micronomic vinyl 12" (MORR 045CD/EP) and a download code. Limited to 500 copies only. 2004's Faking The Books, Lali Puna's third album, is a maverick display of pop sensibilities applied to a world gone wrong. All the ingredients are there: the killer hooks, the subliminal fusion of generic undertones, Valerie Trebeljahr's alluring vocal delivery that at first soothes the senses and at second glance portrays the system in all its celluloid, deceptive glory. Faking The Books is all about the signs of our times, inverting the Zeitgeist into something that not only explores the musical fusion of raucous instrumentation and layered, soothing production, but that also tells its story with a multi-colored grip on our peculiar reality. The songs direct themselves with a pop conviction that isn't afraid to mix vintage synths, vocal effects, garage drum workouts, Detroit strums, carefully-arranged strings, electronic bass drums and a homage to all the bands that have paved the way for such diversity.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Micronomic
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	MORR 045CD

This is the follow-up single to Lali Puna's third album, Faking The Books. The CD version includes a video to "Micronomic." To round things off, Micronomic includes two Lali Puna songs, which were written and recorded while the band worked on Faking The Books. "The Daily Match" clearly focuses on Lali Puna's pop skills and is one of their most accessible songs to date. "Harrison Reverse" is one of the band's rare instrumental compositions presenting Lali Puna's more electronic and abstract side. Features remixes by Anticon artists Alias and Boom Bip.

Artist:	DUO505
Title:	Late
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 046CD

The Duo505 is the brainchild of Wolfgang Kopper and he is a regular face on the Gurtel, an area in Vienna, where lots of clubs, venues, musicians and artists settled down over the last decade. It was here that he noticed two completely different musicians who had one thing in common: their hate/love for Roland's MC-505, better known as simply the Groovebox. One of the musicians is Morr Music's first-ever recording artist B. Fleischmann, who, at that point, was still completely ignorant of his future partner in Duo505, Herbert Weixelbaum. Herbert is a classically trained guitar player who at first didn't want to play anything else but classical music from the Baroque and Renaissance period. Somewhere on his way to adolescence, Weixelbaum changed his mind and started to spend uncountable hours with friends in a dark rehearsal room, he rarely even left for concerts. After all he made it out of there to move to Finland, where he lived quite a while without doing any music at all. Returning to Vienna, Weixelbaum tried to reanimate his basement band, but quickly had to learn that Herbert and his mates were talking about music much more than they were producing it. He took this as a hint to go solo. A guy at the shop where Weixelbaum used to buy his guitar strings, introduced him to the Groovebox shortly after and even made him apply to a Groovebox competition. For the annual street festival Gurtel Nightwalk in Vienna, Wolfgang suggested that Bernhard and Herbert get themselves and their boxes together for a one-off show. He introduced the musicians to each other and they clicked right away. The show was an instant success, and the two decided to work together. They quickly developed an approach where one produced an entire track, and the other picked up on it later in order to add his own perspective. Thus, a Duo505 track is always two tracks, which mix and blend in a very sophisticated manner. B. Fleischmann's level-headedness and his tendencies towards ambient soundscapes from earlier days takes a huge step back in order to make room for a more expressive delivery. Both Herbert and Fleischmann want to rock, but in a pop way and within the technical limitations of their Grooveboxes. During the recording process, Herbert and Bernhard had to rely on at least a minimal amount of verbal communication. While performing live, on the other hand, mouth and even eyes are replaced by heart and guts. They don't have to talk or look at each other to coordinate their actions, they just "feel" each other. So what was the sound of understanding each other blindly again? This record holds the answer!

Artist:	GO FIND, THE
Title:	Miami
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 047CD

A one-man band from Belgium, with fellow Morr artist Styrofoam (Arne Van Petegem) on production. The face and the voice behind it belongs to Dieter Sermeus. Where Styrofoam always tends to take an introspective look inside, The Go Find takes the other route by being positively extroverted. Sermeus presents himself as a very self-confident songwriter, whose catchy, yet sometimes melancholic pop music bypasses the brain and hits the heart directly. His songs feature the bitter sweetness of some of The Postal Service's tracks on the one hand. On the other, they also bring to mind the subtle glow The Notwist presented on Neon Golden. The Go Find occupies the intersection of both bands, which Dieter refers to as being highly influential to him.

Artist:	GO FIND, THE
Title:	Over the Edge vs. What I Want
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 048CD

Over The Edge vs. What I Want once again musically documents the friendship between Dieter Sermeus, the face and voice behind The Go Find, and fellow Belgian Arne Van Petegem, whom you might know as Morr Music recording artist, Styrofoam. Dieter provides the "Late Night Remix" of his very own "Over The Edge," slowing down the original's pace, twisting his own vocals in a very subtle way and laying down a transparent carpet of warm and glitchy soundscapes.

Artist:	POPULOUS
Title:	Queue For Love
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 051CD

If you come across a teenager who is into hip-hop nowadays, it's almost a surprise if they don't understand the genre as the ultimate and dodgy mainstream between bling-bling and crunk, but appreciate hip-hop's golden era starting in the late '80s instead. With his debut album Quipo, Italian producer Populous already showed that he drew his very own conclusions from the jazzed up beats and positive vibes of the Native-Tongues movement around A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Whereas Quipo still displayed a mildly bulky attraction influenced by abstract electronica, Queue For Love now has a much more homogeneous atmosphere and a warmth fed by carefully-selected samples from soul-jazz and soundtrack records from the late '60s and early '70s. Unlike the aesthetics of recent, dominating approaches to hip-hop, Queue For Love is a triumph of the DIY ethos. After all, Andrea Mangia is just a kid with a computer and an incorruptible taste. Queue For Love isn't pure sampledelia, though. A lot of the guitars, e-bows and glockenspiels on this album have been recorded in the bathroom of Populous' tiny student apartment. This album is smooth and balanced and hip-hop at heart, reaching out to songwriting, ambient, folk and film scores. All of this is delicately held together by a remarkable concept of "soul" and obviously, "love."

Artist:	QRELLA, MASHA
Title:	Unsolved Remained
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 052CD

Unsolved Remained is Masha Qrella's second solo album. When Luck came out, Masha already represented an indispensable presence, attitude and a distinctive sound within the Berlin music scene, as guitarist/bassist of the melancholic instrumental band Contriva and as keyboardist of the equally wordless, but more hyper Mina. Meanwhile, she co-founded NMFarner, another band, and was involved in two more releases. She played many concerts and went on tour frequently. And somehow, in the studio, at home between tours, at the sound check, working on remixes and after her concerts, Masha wrote her solo project, the intense, warm, rough, playful, and at times even bitter Unsolved Remained, which goes a couple of steps further than her debut. Compared to her other projects, Masha solo is mostly concerned with amplifying those aspects of her musical output that don't originate in the dynamics of a band, but make audible a feeling of the private. Here memories, hopes, disappointments, joy and regret are translated into songs, which sometimes are concrete enough to be intersubjectively comprehensible, but often point poetically into the intimacy of the singing voice and cannot be decoded directly, only be felt with intuitively. A dialogue emerges between Masha and the listener, between the "I" and the "you" of her lyrics, between her doubled voices on the two poles of the stereo panorama. And the question of how far the person of the songwriter reaches into the songs, how much she hides in them. When listening to Unsolved Remained closely it becomes apparent how elegantly attention towards the smallest details in sound is coupled with a feeling for the emotional impact of the songs. Of course, this impact originates exactly in the delicate production, the complex rhythm programming, the sometimes intentionally rough, mostly subtle use of effects, sounds, rooms and the accentuated guitars between acoustic and noise. Still, the songs remain more important than any obvious demonstration of (plentifully available) production skills. Also electronic and acoustic are no antagonisms that need to be reconciled, they are equally valuable means of expression. Unsolved Remained is sophisticated in the most positive and experimental sense of the word. Masha also added other musicians on this album: in addition to Norman Nitzsche who is responsible for the recording and production of this album, some room on this record was handed over to other musical voices as well. The snapping and crackling rhythm track on "Vertical Destination" was programmed by Berlin sound/visual-collective Rechenzentrum. Similarly, the laconically dragged out backing track of "I Can't Tell" was created in the laboratory of Henrik Johansson. Finally, in the four-and-a-half minute long "C.Bones," a sample from Iso68 finds itself respectfully integrated into the logic of Qrella's songwriting. Unsolved Remained uniquely continues to formulate Masha Qrella's world of sound, warmer, more confident and multi-layered than its predecessor, with a production that gives these 11 songs proper density as well as space.

Artist:	F.S.BLUMM
Title:	Zweite Meer
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 053CD

F.S. Blumm presents his second album following the debut Mondkuchen. Ideas for Zweite Meer started to flow in F.S. Blumm's head while being on the road. Traveling down the west coast from Canada to Mexico with Greg Davis and E*Rock, it could not have been composed any other way. Behind the car window, landscapes kept morphing during the length of one day. Breathing in the morning, diving through the desert, arriving in Las Vegas at night. Outside and in between: the horizon, the sky, expanse and distance. The origins of huge gestures and great pop music. Inside F.S. Blumm's head: Burt Bacharach, Tom Jones and -- not far away -- Brian Wilson.

Artist:	TARWATER
Title:	The Needle Was Traveling
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 054CD

Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram) present The Needle Was Traveling, their fifth full-length album and their first release on Morr Music. It shows the duo at the height of their artistic abilities. There is a new tone to their music here, breathing a narrative quality into their songs. Carried by a warm and softly insisting pulse, they glide from one track, one chapter to the next, while exploring bewitched, yet strangely familiar landscapes -- you'll never really know if they are placed on an axis in a far away future or if they are part of a long-forgotten universe, which is said to have been the place where truth once lived.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	I Thought I Was Over That: Rare, Remixed and B-Sides
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 056CD

I Thought I Was Over That is the playful offspring of a band finally confident enough to re-visit their most daring and individually conceived moments to date. It's also an opportunity to look at those artists who have inspired them in one way or another over the years, pressing them to develop through remixes, collaborations and cover versions where their ideas blossomed from raw material provided by other artists -- and vice versa. This is a double-album that features various rare tracks, remixes and B-sides by Lali Puna, as well as remixes by Dntel, Two Lone Swordsmen, Boom Bip, Alias, Thomas Leboeg, To Rococo Rot, Flowchart and Sixtoo.

Artist:	MUM
Title:	Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today is OK
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 058CD

Classic debut Múm album, previously issued by Tugboat & Thule -- available again. Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today is OK was mostly recorded in a tiny, sweaty room in the summer of 1999 with carpenters banging nails around the band, but sometimes they put on headphones so they couldn't hear them. It was originally released on an Icelandic label called Thule, but early on a number of disputes came up, which ended up dragging on for many years. Part of the attraction of the album is its mixture of analog instruments such as harmonica, accordion and glockenspiel with digital clicks and cuts. But what makes it so beautiful is that at no point does this combination feel constructed or forced. While listening to Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today is OK, you don't care how it was made, you're just enjoying that it exists.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	A.R.C.
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	DVD/CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 059DVD

Here's the concept: A concert. The Tied & Tickled Trio on a Friday in April. Different cameras, different focuses: portable and fixed ones, producing sharply resolved and coarsely grained encoded pictures. Jazz, electronics, the intuition, coincidence, echo and the quotation -- all what the music and the mentality of the Tied & Tickled Trio stands for, all that can be traced within these pictures, filmed, arranged, alienated and clarified by Jörg Adolph and Anton Kaun. And still, there are references: references to the impressionistic way of filming the early jazz films, to the psychedelic weightlessness of Sun Ra, to the digital pictures of contemporary experimental film. The Tied & Tickled Trio features members of The Notwist, Lali Puna and Ms. John Soda. The DVD features 60 minutes of live concert footage, plus hard-to-find videos. The bonus CD features music not previously made available on CD. DVD is NTSC format. The CD contains the studio version of "A.R.C.," 20 minutes long.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	Tied & Tickled Trio
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 060CD

Originally recorded and mixed in 1996, this record became important in both indie rock and electronic worlds. Six musicians from the Bavarian triangle, Munich, Landsberg, Weilheim. Six musicians with their hearts and homes rooted in indie rock and post-punk, in traditional jazz and contemporary art. Two of them, Markus and Micha Acher, were part of The Notwist, one of the most important bands mapping alternative music in Germany. Others, Johannes Enders and Ulrich Wagenheim, have studied jazz and composition. Andreas Gerth worked as an artist and sculptor, Casper Brandner was a well-known drummer in electronic and analog projects. Released on the small Weilheim-based label Payola, the debut of the Tied & Tickled Trio invented a new way of re-arranging old jazz at least for European listeners. Up to then, jazz and alternative had come together mostly in a noisy, distorted and fast-driven way. On this self-titled debut, the Tied & Tickled Trio reworked jazz in a more complex, more open-minded way. It all was about atmosphere and intensity, about sample, structure and sounds. Post-rock (axis Chicago-Weilheim), dub (Adrian Sherwood's On-U-Sound), old heroes (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock) -- the press dropped many names to describe (and to celebrate) this album. "Tusovska Dub" is a vibrating echo chamber, a repetitive track crisscrossed by hidden modulations. "Motorik" is a journey into jazz from minimal piano patterns to free-floating woodwind instruments. "Constant" is a polyrhythmic carpet and the track that shows the complex soundings of the Tied & Tickled Trio best: silent to noisy, far beyond to laid-back, old school jazz to electronic postmodernism. Includes a remix by Console.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	EA1 EA2
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 061CD

EA1 EA2 was originally released on the small Weilheim-based label Payola in 1999. EA1 EA2 is a cool, calculated album. It is about reducing and pausing; less free-jazz than their debut, like in "D.B. Track," where the nervous shimmering of electronic noises flows into the warmth of a swelling trombone. This isn't a minor record, but it is intensive in a more introverted manner. The different influences of the Tied & Tickled Trio are clearly separated: sensitive jazz without fear of pleasant soundings, noisy but carefully-measured electronics and the polyrhythmic drumming of Markus Acher and Casper Brandner, who had both started the Tied & Tickled Trio as a drums-only duo in 1994. EA1 EA2 deals with the recording studio's possibilities in a curious and open-minded way. It phrases the difference between the live and the studio situation, which from then on became a challenge for the Tied & Tickled Trio. Seven years later, the band released film material of one of their recent concerts on their DVD Observing Systems on Morr Music as a result of this process: their concerts are not just a reproduction of their studio recordings and vice versa.

Artist:	ELECTRIC PRESIDENT
Title:	Electric President
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 062CD

Music sounds different by the sea than at any other place: Burt Bacharach's Pacific Coast Highway, Jim O'Rourke's Ghost Ship in a Storm, or those Teenage Symphonies to God which Brian Wilson composed in his California bedroom -- having an artificial beach underneath his feet. The tracks on Electric President throw a glance at the sea as well. They drifted from Jacksonville Beach, Florida through the Atlantic Ocean up to Berlin, from Ben Cooper to Morr Music. These ten songs interpret pop as an ocean of impressions and sensations and surf on their own special surge. Ben Cooper compiled his clear but complex pop pearls along with Alex Kane. Continuously, Cooper's soft but still precise idiom drifts into our ears as a flattering yearning. And maybe it is this voice that describes his music's agenda best: stripped, immediate and interwoven with euphonic choirs. Some people might be reminded of Death Cab for Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard -- but without the teenage angst.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	The Humbucking Coil
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 063CD

Bernhard Fleischmann named his latest album after the roughly 50-year-old Humbucking Coil. As old as modern pop music: the pickup, not the artist. And here, Bernhard Fleischmann has picked up an electronically-amplified guitar for the first time. The Humbucking Coil is an open, breathing album: rather soundbox than hard disk. Before this, there was the project Duo505, developed together with Herbert Weixelbauer and the Groovebox (Roland 505). Here, there is the amplified guitar and the micro-levels of clicks and cuts and the warmth of an old valve-driven microphone. Vibraphone, piano, guitar, they all come together in a still-electronic context.

Artist:	MS. JOHN SODA
Title:	Notes and the Like
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 064CD

Ms. John Soda are Stefanie Böhm (Couch), Micha Acher (The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio), Carl Oesterhelt (FSK, Carlo Fashion) and Thomas Geltinger (Couch). Notes and the Like is a songwriter album. Loud and soft, warm and wide-awake. What may astonish anyone who has been able to experience one of the energetic concerts of Ms. John Soda -- they are more human being than machine. Ms. John Soda has extended the direct address of their concerts with softer and more many-voiced articulations. Undisguised and close, the voice and the melody of Stefanie Böhm captivates all. Also, there are ensnaring bass guitars, carefully assembled percussion sounds, synthesizer, a string quartet, a soft vibrato, and a glockenspiel.

Artist:	GUTHER
Title:	Sundet
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 065CD

If one squints into the sunset, contours get blurred. Things come to an end and begin in a different manner. Fugitive points of light play their game with the retina. If one squints into the sunset, one doesn't see clearly. And still one sees well enough. Sundet knows a lot of sunsets, though. Julia Guther and Berend Intelmann have watched them, into the Havel and the Baltic Sea, on Sweden's southern coast where the ideas for Sundet were brought together. "Still In This Town" is an airy, breathing track. A little later there is "Many Frames Per Moment" consisting of hand-claps, hook-lines and a fine tension, until its final euphoria. At last there is "Two Minds In Between, " with its warm, waiting, precise tact. Julia Guther's voice emerges from sound-spirals. Flutes, electronic bits and pieces, a harmonica, appearing and staying even if they have already disappeared. Bass lines and guitar pickings interweave in a friendly way. All that is there appears only together.

Artist:	COUCH
Title:	Figur 5
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 067CD

Figur 5 is Couch's fifth album. Figur 5, as in figure skating maybe, is also structured by the rigorous choreography by means of "figures." The choreography of Couch songs has always been rigorous, too. Or, to put it more clearly: it has always been unambiguous. Each instrument, each sound has its place, its position, and it has been this way since 1995 when the first album by the Munich trio was released, or, two years later, when the band put their pragmatic dealing with sounds into Etwas Benutzen. Figur 5 is also indicative of what sprouted buds and blossoms on the albums Fantasy (1999) and Profane (2001), both released on Matador Records. Couch songs had become pop songs. Instrumental music in a ready-to-break-up-mood. Euphoric hymns, often consisting of four or five notes only. The art of repetitive exuberance. Songs by Couch are like a perfect wave, as a wave on the Hawaiian coast in November. Once burst out, you hear it grow and grow.

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Plans Drawn in Pencil
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 068CD

The pencil is the softest of all writing implements, it is always close to vanishing, to being wiped or erased. Maybe this album, if it were a painting would not be oil on canvas but rather a pencil drawing. White on grey. Reduced and open at first sight. Rich in details and playful on closer examination. A lot happens within seclusion. Antony Ryan and Robin Saville layered soundtracks on top of the other, activated filters, went through synthesizers and systems (analog and digital ones), looking for sounds. Two artists and their machines.

Artist:	RADICAL FACE
Title:	Ghost
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 069CD

This record started with a simple idea: what if houses had memories? What if, when we lived in them, our stories bled into the walls and became a part of the house? What if our ghosts were always going to haunt the places we've lived, along with everyone else who's lived there? Some of these songs are from the point of view people still living their lives in one of these houses; some are from the point of view of those dead and gone, watching over the living or haunting them; some are from people visiting home, after being away for along time, and the familiar ghosts of childhood all coming back to remind you of the way things used to be. This is a quintessential singer/songwriter album, or, rather a songwriting album, with tracks as carefully arranged interiors, chamber folk, pocket symphonies, passionate melodies. Ben Cooper recorded this album almost entirely alone, in a small shed in Jacksonville Beach, Florida: another one of those houses full of stories. He recorded the guitars and drum patterns, the banjos, organs and keyboards and sang in chorus with himself. He let the instruments take a deep breath and created a breathing record, a lively, warm Ghost.

Artist:	RADICAL FACE
Title:	Ghost
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 069LP

2011 repress. LP version, originally released in 2007. This record started with a simple idea: what if houses had memories? What if, when we lived in them, our stories bled into the walls and became a part of the house? What if our ghosts were always going to haunt the places we've lived, a long with everyone else who's lived there? Some of these songs are from the point of view of people still living their lives in one of these houses; some are from the point of view of those dead and gone, watching over the living or haunting them; some are from people visiting home, after being away for along time, and the familiar ghosts of childhood all coming back to remind you of the way things used to be. This is a quintessential singer/songwriter album, or, rather a songwriting album, with tracks as carefully arranged interiors, chamber folk, pocket symphonies, passionate melodies. Ben Cooper recorded this album almost entirely alone, in a small shed in Jacksonville Beach, Florida: another one of those houses full of stories. He recorded the guitars and drum patterns, the banjos, organs and keyboards and sang in chorus with himself. He let the instruments take a deep breath and created a breathing record, a lively, warm Ghost. Includes a free download coupon.

Artist:	F.S.BLUMM
Title:	Summer Kling
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 070CD

F.S. Blumm (Berlin, Germany) likes to get in his camping van with his guitar, drive to the south and write his tracks on the bench in the back. Back in Berlin, F.S. Blumm invites friends to his place. They bring their instruments: a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a trombone, a flute -- and they enter a small room where instrument and microphone can cuddle up to each other. String instruments ensnare harmonies and in peaceful familiarity, the wind section lays on top of the crest of a wave. In its circumspect opulence of sounds and noises, Summer Kling is a late summery record. "Flosse, " for instance, is a song in a special mood, a song that sets off into the sunrise, when the day begins to broaden in a still, silent way. Just as people meet each other, the instruments join, too. Together they ensnare the delicate melody: chamber folk, one could call it. From serious to easy -- and back again.

Artist:	FAT JON & STYROFOAM
Title:	The Same Channel
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR 071CD

Surrounded by buttons and cables, by guitars, synthesizers and microphones, Fat Jon and Arne van Petegem (Styrofoam) recorded The Same Channel. In Arne's studio in Antwerp, the two docked their soundships: Fat Jon, the EmCee and DJ, Arne van Petegem, the guitarist and laptop-artist. In 2001, Arne van Petegem invited Fat Jon, still living in Cincinnati, Ohio at that time, to a workshop in Antwerp. What followed was great respect for the music of the other and a deep, lasting friendship -- as well as an idea for an album. The Same Channel has grown out of this. This album drinks of a common cup, and welds passions together: the onomatopoeic guitars of Styrofoam, Fat Jon's repetitive idiom, his talent for laconic stories. The clicks'n'cuts are carefully interwoven, with a production that makes clear that two well-versed producers are at work.

Artist:	CONTRIVA
Title:	Separate Chambers
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 072CD

Contriva can be imagined as four friends on their way from the past to the future: four people and their instruments and the space that connects them. With small-big songs, they are always closer to a pop song than to instrumental concept music and, at the end of the day, everything is melody. The hymnal moments when violin and organ get elegiac. They bask in the wide view of the horizon when two guitar figures interweave. The bass spreads the contours, precisely, unpretentiously.

Artist:	TARWATER
Title:	Spider Smile
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 073CD

Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok sit in their recording studio located in the heart of their city and turn the knobs, press the buttons, and shift the regulators until they find a sound, or until a sound finds its way to them. A rhythm, a melody, a noise. For Spider Smile, Tarwater have found pop music: they, the electro duo, each of them with his roots in East Berlin's subculture and avant garde. The sun that rises and sets again and again in "Arkestra" shines for everyone at another place, originating from a joint bus trip with members of Sun Ra Arkestra through the hilly landscape of Scotland. America -- or rather, different ideas of what America is like -- is its essential motif. "Shirley Temple" that marks the beginning, is a clouded electro-overture. The recording studio is Bernd Jestram's and Ronald Lippok's favorite instrument, but still, a number of analog instruments landed up in front of the microphones. A harmonica, for example. And with it the blues. It changes "Witchpark" into a dark dub-landscape. Guitars send several songs on their way -- like the pushing "World of Things to Touch." Violins are plucked distinctly in other songs, an oboe spreads melancholy patina. Later, there is repetition and modification, song- and soundwriting from the spirit of modulation -- a central motif within the music of Tarwater. The album's Virgin Prunes cover makes its way through an echo-chamber. "Home is where the heart is," a line that sums up the entire album very well.

Artist:	BENNI HEMM HEMM
Title:	Kajak
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 074CD

The sounds and texts for Benni Hemm Hemm's second album Kajak were written within a few, concentrated weeks. The recordings in Sundlaugin, the studio of Sigur Rós, were also done within only four days. During four magical days, 11 musicians recorded 13 vibrating tracks with kettle drums and trumpets, with guitars, trombones and a glockenspiel. Emotionally, energetically, emphatically. According to the pulsating way these songs come out of the loudspeakers, these stories wanted to be told. Still on board: the emphatic wind section of Northern Soul, the whirling enthusiasm of dance music. What is new on Kajak is a dramaturgical balance, a giving and taking, especially among single tracks. With Kajak, Benedik H. Hermannsson, the passionate narrator and cunning entertainer, became a well-versed arranger, as well. "Sorgartár" is situated close to the ocean. A surging and swelling, a ride on the wave's crest, constructed of a wind section, organs and one baritone guitar. "Regngalsinn" is an abstract love poem. Birds twitter, everything in the garden is lovely. One could call it a power-ballad if power-ballads didn't have such a bad reputation. "Mónakó" is an absurd song with three singing-tracks overlapping each other. "Egísa," finally, is a slow stroll out of the album into the sunshine. The sun is low in the sky and makes us squint.

Artist:	GO FIND, THE
Title:	Stars on the Wall
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 075CD

Picture this: a warm early summer night. A golden ocean. A magnificent view. In the background, a record of modern pop songs is playing, nonchalant and elegant in equal measures, with touches of rock, dance and singer-songwriter introspection. Often, the tracks have an air of Fleetwood Mac's smooth chic, which they so unforgettably displayed on their classic Rumours album. Other songs bask in the naked, comfortable warmth of just a guitar, a voice and a microphone. Chords tumble out of a well-traveled Hammond organ, 25-year-old analog synths buzz and purr in the distance, and yet none of these songs sounds retro, not even for a split second. When Dieter Sermeus set out to write a follow-up to his 2004 The Go-Find debut, Miami, he felt he wanted to move away from solitary songwriting and recording, and involved his live band from a very early stage. Together, they crafted a collection of "good-sounding, danceable pop tunes" in a studio in his Antwerp hometown, which provided a warm and friendly environment, full of ancient keyboards and rare Moogs. The crisp electronic sounds which adorned most of the Miami tracks have all but disappeared: the new songs sound softer and often more sparse, with bass and drums painting twinkling constellations onto the night sky. With their precisely-placed rhythms and transparent sound, they feel instantly familiar, but upon repeated listening, a wealth of exquisite details and infectious melodies is gradually revealed. There's the aged synthie-transistors of "Beautiful Night" opening the album; or "Dictionary," which starts agreeably reserved, with dry drums and a pithy bass, until more ingredients are carefully added: hand claps, hook-lines, precise delays -- neon light. In "Downtown" however, moonshine softly lights up acoustic guitars and an amiable voice tells of how memories fade away. In the end, this is a record about looking back at the past, and searching for clues about how to approach the future.

Artist:	SEABEAR
Title:	The Ghost That Carried Us Away
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 076CD

This is the debut release by Iceland's Seabear. The Ghost That Carried Us Away flatters in a rather unobtrusive way: fragile hymns of nonchalant casualness, created by the 24-year-old Sindri Már Sigfússon. Guitars, piano, his almost bashful and yet present voice -- themes of nature, mortality and love from Iceland's musical heartland, Reykjavik. There's a violinist with her voice in the clouds, Gudbjörg Hlin Gudmundsdóttir (violin, vocals, harmonica) and Orn (guitar, lapsteel). Other members include Eiki, Orvar, Gudni and Dóri: one plays the flugelhorn, the slide-guitar and upright-bass, one belongs to the live line-up of Sigur Rós and another is part of the sensational Múm. Some are stage members of Benni Hemm Hemm's band -- the other Icelandic artist on Morr music. Sigfusson invited them into his small studio, placed them in front of the only microphone and let them think about his musical thoughts. He likes the notion and the feeling of lo-fi, and for the recording of the drums, only three microphones were used. The result is reminiscent of the reduced stereo recordings of the 1960s. "Libraries" is tiny and gigantic, unobtrusive and exciting at the same time -- a song like blinking into the most beautiful sunrise. A tumbling piano, swinging drums and melancholy melodies. "Hands Remember" includes murmuring vocals and two violins. In "Summer Bird Diamond," birds twitter to the sounds of an old banjo and glockenspiel. It is almost like a chamber folk radio play. And "Seashell" at last, is a pocket symphony, arranged around jumping drums.

Artist:	TIED & TICKLED TRIO
Title:	Aelita
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 077CD

There's no brass section on Aelita. There are no jazzthetics, in that special sense of how the Tied & Tickled Trio has made them audible, at least in the German guitar-based underground. Aelita starts beyond all expectations: this is a melancholy journey, visiting former visions, futurism, science and science fiction. "Chlebnikov," the title of one of the tracks, is named after the Russian avant garde poet who died of starvation in the 1920s. "A Rocket Debris Cloud Drifts" is the name of another one. The dark side of the moon. Aelita is as rough and open as possible and still very concentrated, minimal, melancholy and excessive. "Tamaghis" is slow and well-travelled dub that sounds like echo-chamber-music, with an orbit that hurtles through space. There are three interpretations of the title track; they are all melancholy miniatures: xylophone, glockenspiel, mellotron, dismal sounds. One might think of a space capsule, that gradually loses its contact to the earth. An obituary of a utopia. On Aelita, the Tied & Tickled Trio are Caspar Brandner, Andreas Gerth, Markus and Micha Acher and Carl Oesterhelt: a band that listens very carefully to what their sounds do.

Artist:	PEOPLE PRESS PLAY
Title:	People Press Play
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 078CD

The art of understatement, likeable and restrained. That is how the self-titled debut by People Press Play begins. Synthetic sounds form echo-loops that, in a very similar way, could easily stem from Kevin Shields' guitar as well. Rhythms take a deep breath, a woman's nonchalant voice changes between relaxed jazz and reduced easy listening. My Bloody Valentine and "My Funny Valentine." Four people -- Sara Savery, Anders Remmer, Jesper Skaaning and Thomas Knak -- and their careful game with sounds. The ingredients are well-chosen, the atmosphere is intimate, close to the ear. There is a passion for repetitive structures, duplication. This album required intensive time in the studio, with analog instruments and digital resources always having an equal rank. Sound- and songwriting go hand-in-hand, as well as a passion for dub and Steve Reich or Brian Eno's minimal concept music. Digital and analog moments really find each other and each sound is important, not only as an ornament. "Always Wrong" is a melancholy affair of the heart, surrounded by murmuring nuances and electronic folk from the echo chamber. "These Days" is electro-pop with clear outlines, pushing, elegant and oscillating. Finally, there is "Stop," with its weightless wall of sound and a white, roaring bass guitar within the surf.

Artist:	VA
Title:	A Number of Small Things
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	MORR 079CD

...A Collection of Morr Music Singles From 2001-2007. This is a compilation of tracks from Morr Music's little sister 7" label, A Number of Small Things. The little stories that A Number of Small Things tell are from Morr Music's heartland that have demanded this special and personal stage. Markus Acher's (Tied & Tickled Trio, etc.) and Valerie Trebeljahr's alter ego John Yoko uses the time for a congenial cover version of Smog's "Morning Paper." ISAN combine melancholy and minimalism based around Eric Satie's bare pianoscapes, Gymnopedie. Masha Qrella finally gets to the heart of pop's big promise with her version of Brian Ferry's "Don't Stop the Dance." This is the essential story behind A Number of Small Things: to find greatness within the small. Other small but future-big artists include Butcher The Bar, a young, melancholy English artist and Anthony Ryan (ISAN) and Simon Scott (ex-Slowdive) who -- under the name Seavault, go down into the echoing spaces of past Brit-pop magnificence. There's also Seabear and their equally sovereign and innocent definition of indie pop. Big things can be expected from a number of small things. Other artists include: Benni Hemm Hemm, Electric President, Populous, B. Fleischmann, Styrofoam, Teamforest, Lali Puna, Jens Lekman, 2LS, T. Leboeg and Other People's Children.

Artist:	BORKO
Title:	Celebrating Life
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 080CD

Celebrating Life is the first full-length release from Icelandic artist Björn Kristiansson and reflects a life in music full of experiences. The oldest of these eight tracks are up to six years old, and Morr label-head Thomas Morr has been their eager and attentive listener. How does a punch in the belly sound? Kristiansson has written a song about it called "Spoonstabber," where you'll hear an elegiac Tetris, encapsulated by delaying beats, tumbling samples, guitars, trumpets and a melody that goes on for an eternity. Borko -- who also works as a musician for film and theater as well as a music teacher at a primary school in Reykjavik -- expresses melancholy and nostalgia through rhythm-machines. His songs can reach dramatic heights with climbing melodies, as well as play up the stoicism of repetition and modulation. His work at the laptop and mixing desk live on stage have helped fuel his inspiration as well as childhood prog rock LPs, Jim O'Rourke's ear and electronica's warmth. Kristiansson also enumerates more: "I'm very influenced by loads of great musicians in the music scene here in Iceland. I'm inspired by the kids in the school where I work. I'm inspired by good people. I'm inspired by bad people. I'm inspired by the music I listen to from time to time. I'm inspired by happiness. I'm inspired by sadness. I'm inspired by the sun and the snow. I'm inspired by crazy after parties. I'm inspired by good food. I'm inspired by alcohol. I'm inspired by mirror balls. I'm inspired by noises." Sounds as if Borko is grateful to a lot of people for Celebrating Life. But this album also pays it back again and again.

Artist:	BOBBY AND BLUMM
Title:	Everybody Loves...
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 081CD

Bobby and Blumm is Sweden's Ellinor Blixt (aka Bobby Baby) and Germany's F.S. Blumm, and this is their debut release for the Morr Music label. Bobby tours with her band It's A Musical! and as Bobby Baby and manages a pop-camp for teenage girls in Sweden and Germany. Frank Schültge Blumm has been releasing records since 1998. His first full-length solo album came out on Morr Music in 2001(Mondkuchen), and he is an author and producer of radio-plays. Their debut recording features voices and pickings, guitar, keyboard, Swedish bag and other biscuits. B&B try to give the wide world of pop some little turns and unexpected changes with hiss and rustle, dreamy sound, soft and fragile voices, purity and warmth. Everybody Loves... was recorded 50km north of Berlin in a little house at the edge of the forest in a room with wooden walls and as a result, you will hear the crackling sounds of shellac records, a caressing clothes-brush, some fingertips on greaseproof paper, as well as swinging coat hangers on the night train to Krakow, flat-wound strings on a big guitar and above all, a gentle and silky voice. Bobby and Blumm feel the influence of the following records: Stina Nordenstam, People Are Strange, Nico, Chelsea Girl, Juana Molina, Tres Cosas, David Grubbs, Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange and The Best Of Burt Bacharach.

Artist:	BUTCHER THE BAR
Title:	Sleep At Your Own Speed
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 082CD

This is the debut full-length release by Britain's Joel Nicholson for Morr Music. He has described the cast list of his intimate band as "me and my bedroom." In Manchester, the songs of Butcher the Bar fill a small house, but soon these walls won't be the only ones in which they live. "Make this house a home" could be the phrase that matches this atmosphere. He sounds a little like Elliot Smith, with the persuasive power of his carefully-crafted chords and the immediacy of his softly-spoken vocals. An artist like Joel Nicholson would have been called a singer-songwriter before this word became a catch-all phrase. In the meantime, quiet is STILL the new loud and home-cooked tracks are still the tastiest and most comforting of all. Sleep At Your Own Speed is a coming-of-age novel consisting of 13 short stories. "Getaway," for instance, is a declaration of woe to a city that used to be home once, "Ball Point Skin Notes" illustrates the forlornness of youth, and "Leave Town" is as exuberant as a pop song can be. An acoustic guitar, a banjo, a warm, direct voice. Lyrics such as "I leave town tonight, if only western civilization feels alright..." point to the singer's earnestness and yearning for universal understanding. Melancholy, deceleration and reduction are Joel Nicholson's musical topics. Folk and post-folk, old and new heroes (Nick Drake, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens), searching, finding and finally letting go.

Artist:	POPULOUS WITH SHORT STORIES
Title:	Drawn In Basic
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 083CD

This is the third album from Italian producer, Andrea Mangia aka Populous on Morr Music, with assistance from MC Short Stories aka Michael McGuire. Whereas Queue For Love (2005) curiously broadened the abstract-electronic foundations of his debut Quipo (2002) with the coordinates jazz, folk and especially soul (as an attitude as well as a sound), Drawn In Basic keeps your ears going in every direction. Andrea Mangia is captain and stowaway, songwriter and sound-bricoleur, with tracks that are tricky, polyphonic, and seconds later, four to the floor. Mangia is the type of person who fell in love with the feedbacking guitars of My Bloody Valentine equally as much he fell in love with the peculiar sounds of synthesizer pioneer, Raymond Scott. There are some peculiar synthesizers assembled on Drawn In Basic as well, not as a cool end in itself, but for their warm sounds. "Man Overboard" is a shoegazing melody, somewhere between indie-pop and disco. "Only Hope" is a charming hybrid of digital sounds and analog soul. "Days" piles up its walls of sound higher and higher. Finally, "Breathes The Best" remains 2007's sparkling event, released as a vinyl single on A Number Of Small Things, the little sister of Morr Music. This record is basic like the programming language of the same name, basic like the translation of analog pop music into a digital matrix, and basically beautiful.

Artist:	POPULOUS WITH SHORT STORIES
Title:	Drawn In Basic
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 083LP

LP version. This is the third album from Italian producer, Andrea Mangia aka Populous on Morr Music, with assistance from MC Short Stories aka Michael McGuire. Whereas Queue For Love (2005) curiously broadened the abstract-electronic foundations of his debut Quipo (2002) with the coordinates jazz, folk and especially soul (as an attitude as well as a sound), Drawn In Basic keeps your ears going in every direction. Andrea Mangia is captain and stowaway, songwriter and sound-bricoleur, with tracks that are tricky, polyphonic, and seconds later, four to the floor. Mangia is the type of person who fell in love with the feedbacking guitars of My Bloody Valentine equally as much he fell in love with the peculiar sounds of synthesizer pioneer, Raymond Scott. There are some peculiar synthesizers assembled on Drawn In Basic as well, not as a cool end in itself, but for their warm sounds. "Man Overboard" is a shoegazing melody, somewhere between indie-pop and disco. "Only Hope" is a charming hybrid of digital sounds and analog soul. "Days" piles up its walls of sound higher and higher. Finally, "Breathes The Best" remains 2007's sparkling event, released as a vinyl single on A Number Of Small Things, the little sister of Morr Music. This record is basic like the programming language of the same name, basic like the translation of analog pop music into a digital matrix, and basically beautiful.

Artist:	ELECTRIC PRESIDENT
Title:	Sleep Well
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 084CD

This is the second album by Electric President (Ben Cooper & Alex Kane), made in the same shed in Jacksonville Beach, Florida as their previous records and in Alex's bedroom. The wind blows the sounds away. It's foggy. Beads of dew glisten on the leaves. Outside, in the small tool shed, the light is still on. The ocean is not far away. Concentration and contemplation: for over 13 months, Electric President recorded what Ben Cooper calls a "middle of the night record;" his "12 pop songs about dreams and nightmares." Dreams and nightmares is what Sleep Well is about -- shadowy and inscrutable atmospheres, the border landscapes of our existence where the fog and the wind passes the sounds over to us. As British as sea-shanties, these songs seem to disappear into echo spirals, when Cooper's voice gradually disappears from the microphone until it nearly sounds ghostly. "Ether" is an absolute metamorphosis in the tradition of Franz Kafka or Orson Welles -- a typical Ben Cooper pop song that is hymnal but never theatrical. "Monster" forms sounds into a melodic, sparkling landscape, while "Graves And The Infinite Arm" is a dark, melancholy, gothic novel. The wind blows the sounds away. And us with them.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 085CD

Morr Music releases another record by their old Viennese friend B. Fleischmann. Two genuine and touching farewell songs are the beacons of light on this record, and, even more than The Humbucking Coil, Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung! has made its way from sound to songwriting. Still the sounds come tumbling out of the hard disk and one can hear fingers screwing on regulators. And yet these nine tracks are of a distinct corporeity and spatiality; for instance, when Marilies Jagsch or Sweet William Van Ghost lend their voices for two wonderful moments each. The productive feedback between Vienna and Berlin, between Bernhard Fleischmann and Thomas Morr started with Pop Loops For Breakfast nine years ago. With Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!, Bernhard Fleischmann arrives at a carefully-set wooden table, arranged in a warm and glowing sunset. The aromas are darker and more wholehearted now. The groove box of former times has vanished almost entirely -- only within the congenial embrace of Bernhard Fleischmann's "Phones & Machine" (The Humbucking Coil) and Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" can it still be traced. Regardless of the change in tune, these sounds won't pass you by -- they swing on to the next morning, stroll through the streets with you, drift as an echo from the houses' walls; sometimes as a slow dub, sometimes as an intimate ballad. These are sounds that tumble and dance.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 085LP

LP version. Morr Music releases another record by their old Viennese friend B. Fleischmann. Two genuine and touching farewell songs are the beacons of light on this record, and, even more than The Humbucking Coil, Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung! has made its way from sound to songwriting. Still the sounds come tumbling out of the hard disk and one can hear fingers screwing on regulators. And yet these nine tracks are of a distinct corporeity and spatiality; for instance, when Marilies Jagsch or Sweet William Van Ghost lend their voices for two wonderful moments each. The productive feedback between Vienna and Berlin, between Bernhard Fleischmann and Thomas Morr started with Pop Loops For Breakfast nine years ago. With Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!, Bernhard Fleischmann arrives at a carefully-set wooden table, arranged in a warm and glowing sunset. The aromas are darker and more wholehearted now. The groove box of former times has vanished almost entirely -- only within the congenial embrace of Bernhard Fleischmann's "Phones & Machine" (The Humbucking Coil) and Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" can it still be traced. Regardless of the change in tune, these sounds won't pass you by -- they swing on to the next morning, stroll through the streets with you, drift as an echo from the houses' walls; sometimes as a slow dub, sometimes as an intimate ballad. These are sounds that tumble and dance.

Artist:	IT'S A MUSICAL
Title:	The Music Makes Me Sick
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 086CD

This is the debut full-length release by Swedish/German duo, It's A Musical. Robert Kretzschmar and Ella Blixt got to know each other on a joint tour with Robert's former band, Lady Boy and Ella's solo project, Bobby Baby in 2006. Ella splits her time between Malmö and Berlin, while Robert studies in the East German city of Cottbus, so It's A Musical is a band between places, as well as between genres. They recorded the songs as they were written in their rooms -- in rough shape, direct, turning somersaults. Four hands on a keyboard, and two jubilant voices. And these are voices that share equal space with each other, intertwining in stunning pop harmony, sung in English. "Lazy" begins as a melancholy piano miniature that expands into a grand, sweeping Burt Bacharach serenade. "Circus" features a waltzing organ and brass confidently bumps against a marching percussion in "Pain." So, what's this music about? Happy things, bad things, like The Carpenters or Jens Lekman -- rough and subtle, virtuoso and amateurish, mischievous and angelic. Sincere, upbeat pop about having no money and having trouble making art.

Artist:	SURF CITY
Title:	Surf City EP
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 087CD

This is the debut release by New Zealand's Surf City. An anachronism right at the beginning, Surf City was founded in a video library, in this dying-out relic of an analogue age. When Davin Stoddard and Josh Kennedy ran into each other one evening in their small town, Josh had just bought a sound card and Davin a four-track. This debut EP is storming and strolling, light-footed, laconic and pop -- produced in an excessively lo-fi a manner as possible. Surf City is about the simplicity of sound, perfectly encapsulating pop music's essence, that bands like Pavement, The Zombies or The Jesus and Mary Chain share as a smallest common denominator. Everyone who has ever heard the breakers against New Zealand's coast suspects that Brian Wilson has a beach house in Surf City as well. However, New Zealand's legendary era of rock music resides in the Flying Nun label and with bands like The Clean or Tall Dwarfs. Nevertheless, the rumbling atmosphere of "Headin' Inside" could have been released by Flying Nun Records as well -- not as a nostalgic revival of good old times -- but rather as a self-confident continuation of a legendary sound. With Morr Music, Surf City has found a congenial home.

Artist:	SIN FANG BOUS
Title:	Clangour
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 088CD

This is the debut release by Reykjavik's Sindri Mar Sigfusson (Seabear) as Sin Fang Bous. Clangour is an album and a project that was a total surprise to Morr Music and to himself. Gravitational processes, drifts, accumulations, miniatures, a voice, a guitar, changing textures and re-colored leaves -- these are pocket symphonies in the vein of Brian Wilson. Songs, sounds and samples are crystal-clear and yet able to raise a storm. For example, "Advent In Ives Garden" is a greenhouse paradise of melody miniatures and sound pieces, and "Catch The Light" showcases Sindri's voice in choir-form. In this project there is a direct, intuitive sound that recalls Seabear, but that also embraces a pop naivety without embarrassment. Electronic squiggles, rallying percussion and a mishmash of guitars and vocals, this is a euphoric release in the spirit of Animal Collective, Caribou or Panda Bear, all wrapped up with a charming homemade pop bow.

Artist:	SIN FANG BOUS
Title:	Clangour
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 088LP

LP version, gatefold sleeve. This is the debut release by Reykjavik's Sindri Mar Sigfusson (Seabear) as Sin Fang Bous. Clangour is an album and a project that was a total surprise to Morr Music and to himself. Gravitational processes, drifts, accumulations, miniatures, a voice, a guitar, changing textures and re-colored leaves -- these are pocket symphonies in the vein of Brian Wilson. Songs, sounds and samples are crystal-clear and yet able to raise a storm. For example, "Advent In Ives Garden" is a greenhouse paradise of melody miniatures and sound pieces, and "Catch The Light" showcases Sindri's voice in choir-form. In this project there is a direct, intuitive sound that recalls Seabear, but that also embraces a pop naivety without embarrassment. Electronic squiggles, rallying percussion and a mishmash of guitars and vocals, this is a euphoric release in the spirit of Animal Collective, Caribou or Panda Bear, all wrapped up with a charming homemade pop bow.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Not Given Lightly: A Tribute To The Giant Golden Book...
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	MORR 090CD

...Of New Zealand's Alternative Music Scene. Morr Music presents a 2CD compilation paying tribute to the great, highly-influential New Zealand indie-pop bands of the 1980s, whose steadfast DIY aesthetic paved the way internationally for the future development of all modern indie bands to follow. CD1 features cover versions of New Zealand's most beloved songs from that era by Morr's best current artists, and CD2 features previously-unreleased tracks that look towards the future of indie-pop. In New Zealand, the archetype of what was called indie-pop was established. Labels such as Flying Nun, Xpressway, IMD and Corpus Hermeticum rose up in response to punk, and bands such as The Clean, The Chills and Tall Dwarfs helped forge what would be called the "Dunedin Sound," characterized by jangly guitar, straight-ahead bass lines and no-nonsense drums. Because of New Zealand's isolation, new music from the UK and U.S. only trickled in sometimes years after the fact, and out of the earnest desire of a passionate few to create an autonomous Kiwi scene (and the disinterest of overseas major labels), punk, pop, etc., was born in garages and pressed on screen-printed 7"s out of ingenuity and necessity. Everyone knew each other, everyone played in each other's bands, and everyone was influenced by each other's sound -- simple, lo-fi, untouched and singular, and completely apart from the rest of the world. There was promise in songs like "Not Given Lightly" by legendary scenester and The Enemy and Toy Love founding member, Chris Knox or "Pink Frost" by The Chills, and it was eventually heard by compatriots in the U.S. -- Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth referred to New Zealand's alternative music scene directly. In Germany, artists as well as heads of labels adapted a similar DIY model. Markus Acher, who is part of this compilation with Lali Puna, played together with Graeme Jefferies (Nocturnal Projections, This Kind Of Punishment, The Cakekitchen). Suddenly, lo-fi was everywhere. The Morr Music label would not have been thinkable without this DIY-idea. Not Given Lightly features modern-day reinterpretations of seminal tracks from Jean Paul Sartre Experience, The Chills, The Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, Chris Knox, The Bats, Graeme Jeffries, The Clean, Peter Jefferies, Robert Scott, and David Kilgour, played by Lali Puna, People Press Play, Tarwater, It's A Musical, B.Fleischmann, The Go Find, Guther, The Wooden Birds, Butcher The Bar, Sin Fang Bous, Borko, Masha Qrella, Saroos, American Analog Set, Bobby & Blumm, Contriva, Isan, and Electric President. Other artists include: Benni Hemm Hemm, Radical Face, Seabear, Surf City, Seafault, and Populous.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Not Given Lightly: A Tribute To The Giant Golden Book...
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	3LP
Price:	$25.50
Catalog #:	MORR 090LP

...Of New Zealand's Alternative Music Scene. Gatefold triple LP version. ...Of New Zealand's Alternative Music Scene. Morr Music presents a compilation paying tribute to the great, highly-influential New Zealand indie-pop bands of the 1980s, whose steadfast DIY aesthetic paved the way internationally for the future development of all modern indie bands to follow. In New Zealand, the archetype of what was called indie-pop was established. Labels such as Flying Nun, Xpressway, IMD and Corpus Hermeticum rose up in response to punk, and bands such as The Clean, The Chills and Tall Dwarfs helped forge what would be called the "Dunedin Sound," characterized by jangly guitar, straight-ahead bass lines and no-nonsense drums. Because of New Zealand's isolation, new music from the UK and U.S. only trickled in sometimes years after the fact, and out of the earnest desire of a passionate few to create an autonomous Kiwi scene (and the disinterest of overseas major labels), punk, pop, etc., was born in garages and pressed on screen-printed 7"s out of ingenuity and necessity. Everyone knew each other, everyone played in each other's bands, and everyone was influenced by each other's sound -- simple, lo-fi, untouched and singular, and completely apart from the rest of the world. There was promise in songs like "Not Given Lightly" by legendary scenester and The Enemy and Toy Love founding member, Chris Knox or "Pink Frost" by The Chills, and it was eventually heard by compatriots in the U.S. -- Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth referred to New Zealand's alternative music scene directly. In Germany, artists as well as heads of labels adapted a similar DIY model. Markus Acher, who is part of this compilation with Lali Puna, played together with Graeme Jefferies (Nocturnal Projections, This Kind Of Punishment, The Cakekitchen). Suddenly, lo-fi was everywhere. The Morr Music label would not have been thinkable without this DIY-idea. Not Given Lightly features modern-day reinterpretations of seminal tracks from Jean Paul Sartre Experience, The Chills, The Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, Chris Knox, The Bats, Graeme Jeffries, The Clean, Peter Jefferies, Robert Scott, and David Kilgour, played by Lali Puna, People Press Play, Tarwater, It's A Musical, B.Fleischmann, The Go Find, Guther, The Wooden Birds, Butcher The Bar, Sin Fang Bous, Borko, Masha Qrella, Saroos, American Analog Set, Bobby & Blumm, Contriva, Isan, and Electric President. Other artists include: Benni Hemm Hemm, Radical Face, Seabear, Surf City, Seafault, and Populous.

Artist:	QRELLA, MASHA
Title:	Speak Low - Loewe and Weill In Exile
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 091CD

In October 2007, indie-pop chanteuse Masha Qrella (Contriva, Mina, Nmfarner) was asked by Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) to put together an evening's performance as part of the "New York-Berlin" celebrations to mark the venue's 50th anniversary. Under the heading Broadway - Cradle of Popular Music, the challenge was to work with and find new approaches to the compositions of Kurt Weill and Frederick Loewe, two giants of Broadway who had their origins in Berlin. Speak Low -- Loewe and Weill In Exile is the live studio recording of these new interpretations of Broadway classics, with Qrella lending her supremely mellow style for a completely new pop take on familiar and well-covered material. Detlef Diederichsen, the curator of the series of events comments, "I wanted to choose a Berlin artist to work on this project who you wouldn't really expect to be involved in something like this -- and who would thus be able to judge Weill and Loewe's output for themselves. I wanted someone who had the technical ability to take on these songs which are sometimes quite sophisticated, particularly compared to today's indie-pop songs. Masha Qrella ... and her musical partners have really succeeded in arranging and playing the Weill/Loewe originals in such a way that you'd think the musicians had just come up with them themselves -- in other words, they have succeeded in making the songs their own! They also avoid the drama and theatricality that almost every other artist so far has obviously felt compelled to employ, and have managed to maintain the laconic, melancholy atmosphere that has pervaded their other albums up to now. A listener who didn't know in advance who wrote this material would probably say that these songs were her own compositions." This is Qrella with a fully-formed band and standards like "September Song," which has almost been covered to death, comes alive again here; and the version of "Speak Low" by the The Four Freshmen is also no longer necessarily the definitive version of the song for the rest of eternity. And these aren't merely just cloying covers by an indie artist trying to legitimize the scope of their talent through cutesy chops. Qrella and her band tastefully and effortlessly makes visible the hidden line that quite possibly has been connecting Broadway and indie-pop all this time.

Artist:	QRELLA, MASHA
Title:	Speak Low - Loewe and Weill In Exile
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 091LP

LP version with poster. In October 2007, indie-pop chanteuse Masha Qrella (Contriva, Mina, Nmfarner) was asked by Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) to put together an evening's performance as part of the "New York-Berlin" celebrations to mark the venue's 50th anniversary. Under the heading Broadway - Cradle of Popular Music, the challenge was to work with and find new approaches to the compositions of Kurt Weill and Frederick Loewe, two giants of Broadway who had their origins in Berlin. Speak Low -- Loewe and Weill In Exile is the live studio recording of these new interpretations of Broadway classics, with Qrella lending her supremely mellow style for a completely new pop take on familiar and well-covered material. Detlef Diederichsen, the curator of the series of events comments, "I wanted to choose a Berlin artist to work on this project who you wouldn't really expect to be involved in something like this -- and who would thus be able to judge Weill and Loewe's output for themselves. I wanted someone who had the technical ability to take on these songs which are sometimes quite sophisticated, particularly compared to today's indie-pop songs. Masha Qrella ... and her musical partners have really succeeded in arranging and playing the Weill/Loewe originals in such a way that you'd think the musicians had just come up with them themselves -- in other words, they have succeeded in making the songs their own! They also avoid the drama and theatricality that almost every other artist so far has obviously felt compelled to employ, and have managed to maintain the laconic, melancholy atmosphere that has pervaded their other albums up to now. A listener who didn't know in advance who wrote this material would probably say that these songs were her own compositions." This is Qrella with a fully-formed band and standards like "September Song," which has almost been covered to death, comes alive again here; and the version of "Speak Low" by the The Four Freshmen is also no longer necessarily the definitive version of the song for the rest of eternity. And these aren't merely just cloying covers by an indie artist trying to legitimize the scope of their talent through cutesy chops. Qrella and her band tastefully and effortlessly makes visible the hidden line that quite possibly has been connecting Broadway and indie-pop all this time.

Artist:	MUM
Title:	Prophecies and Reversed Memories
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	10"
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	MORR 093EP

In conjunction with múm's fifth album, Morr Music releases Prophecies and Reversed Memories: a 10" that contains one album track and two songs exclusive to this release. "Prophecies..." features a naive and overly-sweet chorus that gets more and more euphoric with its repetition, while "Amen Flutes" is an eccentric and strange pop song that builds up a glorious mess of sounds. To close, "Krippling" is a careful, fragile and heart-warming ballad that shows the band's adult side. Limited remaining stock.

Artist:	CLEAN, THE
Title:	Mister Pop
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	MORR 095LP

European-only vinyl edition; CD is licensed to Merge in North America. In 1978, The Clean were the seeds of New Zealand punk, their influence resonating not only in New Zealand but also around the world. Their sound is completely theirs but draws on everything from the psychedelic paste of Syd Barrett/early Floyd to vintage Velvets propulsiveness to almost everything else under the sun. They created both full studio sound and lo-fi recordings before, during, and after the various waves of the 4-track revolution, making both recording modes work with no loss of the band's identity. As far as other influences, you can hear Arthur Lee, Shirley Collins, and the Rolling Stones, among others, but it's never a kind of forced appropriation; while some bands seem to say, "Look at my record collection," in the case of The Clean, it's organic, seamless, and inimitable. Mister Pop sees The Clean continue the great pop pastiche. Circus ragas, gorgeously hazy sunset anthems, and the sometimes-loose Dada approach to wordsmithery continue right alongside "proper" lyrical forays, and a few Autobahn-referential instro moments to boot ("Tensile"). Bob's love of pastoral UK folk has brought some added weight into the overall Clean equation, as does David's Eastern and African guitar jones, though all this has always fit in with -- and still constitutes -- the total basis of The Clean sound journey. Last copies on vinyl...

Artist:	GO FIND, THE
Title:	Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 096CD

This is the third full-length album from Belgium's Dieter Sermeus aka The Go Find. Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight is a more up-tempo album on which the band continues to refine and build upon their familiar sound: dreamy indie-pop songs built around swirling synths, acoustic guitars and Dieter's distinct voice. Musically, the band pays tribute to some of their obvious and not so obvious influences. It's no surprise that they used to listen to Pavement in the '90s, but an ode to the smooth and sophisticated sound of Roxy Music is a refreshing new turn. The album was recorded over a period of six months in Brussels and Antwerp, each song built on a base of acoustic guitars and drums. The production is loaded with warm and melodic instrumentation, which provides the perfect background for the lyrics. Also notable are backing vocals by Mintzkov's Lies Lorquet and a duet with new talent, Karo. This album will leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling, making you want to go back to those first days of falling in love in high school.

Artist:	GO FIND, THE
Title:	Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	MORR 096LP

LP version. This is the third full-length album from Belgium's Dieter Sermeus aka The Go Find. Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight is a more up-tempo album on which the band continues to refine and build upon their familiar sound: dreamy indie-pop songs built around swirling synths, acoustic guitars and Dieter's distinct voice. Musically, the band pays tribute to some of their obvious and not so obvious influences. It's no surprise that they used to listen to Pavement in the '90s, but an ode to the smooth and sophisticated sound of Roxy Music is a refreshing new turn. The album was recorded over a period of six months in Brussels and Antwerp, each song built on a base of acoustic guitars and drums. The production is loaded with warm and melodic instrumentation, which provides the perfect background for the lyrics. Also notable are backing vocals by Mintzkov's Lies Lorquet and a duet with new talent, Karo. This album will leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling, making you want to go back to those first days of falling in love in high school.

Artist:	SEABEAR
Title:	We Built A Fire
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 097CD

This is the second full-length album by Iceland's Seabear. Defying its humble beginnings as the lo-fi solo project of singer/multi-instrumentalist Sindri Már Sigfússon, Seabear has morphed into a rambling experimental/indie/folk septet. Joining Sigfússon (whose unassisted musings are now released via his Sin Fang Bous moniker, which just made Rolling Stone call him the "Icelandic Beck") are Gudbjörg Hlin Gudmundsdottir, Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, Halldór Ragnarsson, Örn Ingi Ágústsson, Kjartan Bragi Bjarnason and Sóley Stefánsdóttir -- all working in a wide range of solo-, band- (Kimono, Skakkamanage) and visual art projects in their own right. For We Built A Fire, all members of the band had equal input in the writing process, thereby creating Seabear's first real collective album. While Sigfússon's unmistakable voice remains the centerpiece, the new joint approach is reflected in songs like "I'll Build You A Fire," where the whole band joins in on vocals. While retaining their signature simplistic and addictive naive indie-folk, the band have branched out stylistically to include elements of straight-up indie rock, intense balladry and even some country twang. There is something instantly familiar about Seabear's songs that resonates with fans and critics alike. Despite scant promotion and airplay behind their debut album release, 2007's The Ghost That Carried Us Away (MORR 076CD), their songs and animated videos were a social media hit generating millions of plays. It's a very Icelandic DIY setup -- their music is recorded by the band in their basement studio with its apple carton-covered walls. All artwork and videos are hand-made by Sindri's partner and band mate Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir.

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Our Inventions
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 098CD

This is the fourth full-length album by Germany's Lali Puna. More than half a decade has elapsed since the release of Faking The Books (MORR 044CD/LP), but the band's impact on the climate of electronic rock music remains palpable. Along with sister-group The Notwist, this Weilheim quartet have helped map out the musical landscape for modern, experimentally-minded pop music, and Our Inventions finds Lali Puna continuing to push the frontiers of their medium. "Rest Your Head" serves as a perfectly poised re-introduction to the band and all they've become. Initiated by waves of glassy pulsations and warm, swelling synths, the song has the feel of a reverse-lullaby -- gently winding its way through reposeful melodies, guided by the welcoming whisper of Trebeljahr's vocal until the final third kicks in with drum machine hits. While Faking The Books, with its vibrant riffs and extroverted tendencies, had the sound of a record begging to be played live, Our Inventions exhibits the hallmarks of an album spun from intensive studio-bound introspection. Two of the most explosive and ebullient songs here -- "Remember" and "Everything Is Always" -- confirm so much of what's special about Lali Puna: all the elements are at once precision-engineered and delivered with absolute heartfelt conviction; perhaps never before have such jubilant pop hooks been so meticulously and fastidiously crafted, yet you can always hear the soul behind these machines. The final song is a collaboration with the Yellow Magic Orchestra's Yukihiro Takahashi. The version appearing here is an alternate rendering of the track that appeared on Takahashi's Page By Page. The sublime, virtuoso electronic arrangements of Our Inventions directly lock onto the record's recurrent key themes, depicting a world inundated with technology and consumed by a fixation on progress -- simultaneously passing commentary on this state of affairs and overcoming it. Members: Valerie Trebeljahr (keyboards, vocals); Christoph Brandner (also of Tied & Tickled Trio) (drums); Christian Heiß (keyboards); Markus Acher (The Notwist) (keyboards).

Artist:	LALI PUNA
Title:	Our Inventions
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	MORR 098LP

LP version with printed inner sleeve and MP3 download coupon. This is the fourth full-length album by Germany's Lali Puna. More than half a decade has elapsed since the release of Faking The Books (MORR 044CD/LP), but the band's impact on the climate of electronic rock music remains palpable. Along with sister-group The Notwist, this Weilheim quartet have helped map out the musical landscape for modern, experimentally-minded pop music, and Our Inventions finds Lali Puna continuing to push the frontiers of their medium. "Rest Your Head" serves as a perfectly poised re-introduction to the band and all they've become. Initiated by waves of glassy pulsations and warm, swelling synths, the song has the feel of a reverse-lullaby -- gently winding its way through reposeful melodies, guided by the welcoming whisper of Trebeljahr's vocal until the final third kicks in with drum machine hits. While Faking The Books, with its vibrant riffs and extroverted tendencies, had the sound of a record begging to be played live, Our Inventions exhibits the hallmarks of an album spun from intensive studio-bound introspection. Two of the most explosive and ebullient songs here -- "Remember" and "Everything Is Always" -- confirm so much of what's special about Lali Puna: all the elements are at once precision-engineered and delivered with absolute heartfelt conviction; perhaps never before have such jubilant pop hooks been so meticulously and fastidiously crafted, yet you can always hear the soul behind these machines. The final song is a collaboration with the Yellow Magic Orchestra's Yukihiro Takahashi. The version appearing here is an alternate rendering of the track that appeared on Takahashi's Page By Page. The sublime, virtuoso electronic arrangements of Our Inventions directly lock onto the record's recurrent key themes, depicting a world inundated with technology and consumed by a fixation on progress -- simultaneously passing commentary on this state of affairs and overcoming it. Members: Valerie Trebeljahr (keyboards, vocals); Christoph Brandner (also of Tied & Tickled Trio) (drums); Christian Heiß (keyboards); Markus Acher (The Notwist) (keyboards).

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Glow In The Dark Safari Set
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 099CD

Robin Saville and Antony Ryan, two English gentlemen who create music together under the nom de plume Isan, return with their sixth full-length album for their spiritual home of Morr Music. It's been a few years since Isan's previous outing, the delectable electronic esoterica of Plans Drawn In Pencil (MORR 068CD/LP), but the results, in time-honored Isan tradition, are certainly worth the wait. Opener, "Channel Ten," with its Autobahn-assured poise, appropriately prefigures a body of work that is Isan's finest to-date. Inspiration for this came from "emancipation" as Robin elaborates: "It was an attempt to jettison the weight of our back catalog and get back to the fun of making music. This entailed playing with ancient Casios, mangled tape loops and squidgy noises. Very hands-on. Most of the tracks on the album started life away from the laptop." This giddy sense of enjoyment suffuses the album -- from the glistening rush of "Merman Sound" which segues into the soft-focus sound-world of its own coda seamlessly to the cinematic, tech-y strut of "Grissette" or the calmly oscillating and cascading melodies of "Greencracked," which evoke images of a retro-futurist utopia. Isan have always excelled at fashioning a quietly awe-inspiring music and Glow... is no exception. Even the title suggests a sense of wide-eyed-wonder "We were playing with lots of ideas around fire, embers, bioluminescence and the title popped into my head one day. It seemed to sum up a lot of the things we like -- I like to imagine sitting in a darkened room looking at the gentle green glow of 1970s VU meters, then they all come to life and start crawling up the wall." says Antony. Such is the album's celestial, hot-wired circuit-board wizardry; Glow In The Dark Safari Set positively throbs, ebbs and flows with electronically refracted ideas and melodies -- a digital tone poem sitting somewhere betwixt the cozy experimentation of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the exotic sonic emissions of a top-secret Düsseldorf studio circa 1975.

Artist:	ISAN
Title:	Glow In The Dark Safari Set
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP + 7"
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	MORR 099LP

LP version with bonus 7" and download coupon. Robin Saville and Antony Ryan, two English gentlemen who create music together under the nom de plume Isan, return with their sixth full-length album for their spiritual home of Morr Music. It's been a few years since Isan's previous outing, the delectable electronic esoterica of Plans Drawn In Pencil (MORR 068CD/LP), but the results, in time-honored Isan tradition, are certainly worth the wait. Opener, "Channel Ten," with its Autobahn-assured poise, appropriately prefigures a body of work that is Isan's finest to-date. Inspiration for this came from "emancipation" as Robin elaborates: "It was an attempt to jettison the weight of our back catalog and get back to the fun of making music. This entailed playing with ancient Casios, mangled tape loops and squidgy noises. Very hands-on. Most of the tracks on the album started life away from the laptop." This giddy sense of enjoyment suffuses the album -- from the glistening rush of "Merman Sound" which segues into the soft-focus sound-world of its own coda seamlessly to the cinematic, tech-y strut of "Grissette" or the calmly oscillating and cascading melodies of "Greencracked," which evoke images of a retro-futurist utopia. Isan have always excelled at fashioning a quietly awe-inspiring music and Glow... is no exception. Even the title suggests a sense of wide-eyed-wonder "We were playing with lots of ideas around fire, embers, bioluminescence and the title popped into my head one day. It seemed to sum up a lot of the things we like -- I like to imagine sitting in a darkened room looking at the gentle green glow of 1970s VU meters, then they all come to life and start crawling up the wall." says Antony. Such is the album's celestial, hot-wired circuit-board wizardry; Glow In The Dark Safari Set positively throbs, ebbs and flows with electronically refracted ideas and melodies -- a digital tone poem sitting somewhere betwixt the cozy experimentation of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the exotic sonic emissions of a top-secret Düsseldorf studio circa 1975.

Artist:	TIED + TICKLED TRIO AND BILLY HART
Title:	La Place Demon
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 100CD

The brothers Markus and Micha Acher are key figures in the now internationally-recognized trademark that is the "Weilheim Scene." Every one of their projects, be it The Notwist, 13&God or Tied & Tickled Trio has grown to become a working cosmos each of its own while remaining open on all sides. This album comes thanks to their preference for creative collaborations, and Tied & Tickled Trio really have a thrilling artistic liaison this time around. The drummer Billy Hart is among one of the most accomplished contemporary jazz drummers in the world. Along with his recordings as band leader, Hart, who celebrated his 70th birthday in 2010, can be heard drumming on more than 600 albums. Among other groups, he was a long-running member of the Herbie Hancock and Stan Getz bands. Hart was highly involved with the composition and arrangements on La Place Demon. The permanent members of the Tied & Tickled Trio also occupied themselves intensively with Billy Hart's music prior to and during the composition of the album. Over the course of his discography, he has covered everything from spiritual jazz to free music and electronic music. This album charts this development in broad strokes and as such is something like a biographical album. The Tied & Tickled Trio play jazz music from an indie perspective and so are by definition not afraid of contact. It's amazing that a project which practically has a new approach for every composition can still have a unified sound. The guys from Weilheim have an instantly-recognizable sound -- regardless whether they are playing crazy free jazz, static drones or complex patterns. Perhaps it's something to do with their love of woodwinds and rather melancholy harmonies, which one knows well from The Notwist.

Artist:	TIED + TICKLED TRIO AND BILLY HART
Title:	La Place Demon
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	MORR 100LP

Deluxe 3-sided double LP version housed in a full-color gatefold sleeve with printed innersleeves. Includes download coupon. The brothers Markus and Micha Acher are key figures in the now internationally-recognized trademark that is the "Weilheim Scene." Every one of their projects, be it The Notwist, 13&God or Tied & Tickled Trio has grown to become a working cosmos each of its own while remaining open on all sides. This album comes thanks to their preference for creative collaborations, and Tied & Tickled Trio really have a thrilling artistic liaison this time around. The drummer Billy Hart is among one of the most accomplished contemporary jazz drummers in the world. Along with his recordings as band leader, Hart, who celebrated his 70th birthday in 2010, can be heard drumming on more than 600 albums. Among other groups, he was a long-running member of the Herbie Hancock and Stan Getz bands. Hart was highly involved with the composition and arrangements on La Place Demon. The permanent members of the Tied & Tickled Trio also occupied themselves intensively with Billy Hart's music prior to and during the composition of the album. Over the course of his discography, he has covered everything from spiritual jazz to free music and electronic music. This album charts this development in broad strokes and as such is something like a biographical album. The Tied & Tickled Trio play jazz music from an indie perspective and so are by definition not afraid of contact. It's amazing that a project which practically has a new approach for every composition can still have a unified sound. The guys from Weilheim have an instantly-recognizable sound -- regardless whether they are playing crazy free jazz, static drones or complex patterns. Perhaps it's something to do with their love of woodwinds and rather melancholy harmonies, which one knows well from The Notwist.

Artist:	PASCAL PINON
Title:	Pascal Pinon
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 101CD

This is the debut full-length release by Pascal Pinon, a bunch of very talented 16-year-old Icelandic teenage girls headed by twin sisters Jófrídur and Ásthildur with their band mates Halla and Kristín. Since the name "Pascal Pinon" refers to a two-headed freak-show "celebrity" who died in 1929 (and whose second head was really just a tumor modeled to look like a cranium by means of a wax enhancement), one might expect some rather disturbed DIY compositions, especially given that this band is two-headed as well (the twin thing). Yet, these young ladies instead focus on altogether different facets of life: like a latter-day Thoreau, Jófrídur praises the beauty of nature in the opening track, which translates to "Under Clear Sky," comprised of three beautiful chords and some poetic lines she composed when she was 13. Elsewhere, the four girls pay homage to Icelandic poet Davíd Stefánsson (1895-1964), and cite rather expected and unexpected ("thin walls," "shyness") influences to their music, singing in English as well as Icelandic, while deliberately ignoring the latest technical advancements: a bedroom, a bunch of guitars, flutes, and a glockenspiel will do just fine, just like that one microphone they placed in the middle of the house they rented to record their fragile DIY gems. Keeping their tracks short and crisp, they avoid both the cheap slickness of campfire romanticism and the supposedly fresh edge of the next teenage hype or the most "likes" on Facebook. Instead, Pascal Pinon are all about creating a connection, the smallest possible distance between their own feelings and the listeners. Call it nude folk, new Romanticism or the new shy -- what matters is that Pascal Pinon, though no longer the "gang of 14-year-olds" they were when they recorded this album, are just getting started. While their self-titled debut, which they independently released in Iceland, earning them a nomination for "Newcomer of the Year" at last year's Icelandic Music Awards, has been picked up by Morr Music for an international release (naturally it was their parents who signed the contract), they're already busy learning new instruments and working on their sophomore LP. Considering that, the whole claim about their songs being "all terrible shit" ("I Wrote A Song") is an outright lie.

Artist:	DUO505
Title:	Walzer Oder Nicht
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	MORR 103CD

This is the third album by Bernhard Fleischmann and Herbert Weixelbaum aka Duo505. Forget about lyrics to convey feelings or moods: it's all in the music, in the melodies and harmonies. After all, these tracks don't need words to say a whole lot. The same is true of their genesis: Bernhard Fleischmann and Herbert Weixelbaum hardly discussed any ideas or musical concepts while in the studio. Instead, these tracks simply emerged while they were playing together; the melodies grew out of a wordless conversation, an exchange of sounds and notes. This newfound collaborative spirit lies at the heart of Walzer Oder Nicht: the various tracks and layers intertwine and complement each other on a whole new level. That's how a song like "No Mail" came about, a track whose inner logic and intricate composition manages to captivate the listener entirely. Yet, it's not just the interlocking density that's new, as Duo505 present a whole new set of arrangements: above all, Fleischmann and Weixelbaum added guitars to the mix, which in turn means that the Roland MC-505 is no longer the predominant element of their sound. Case in point: On the opening track "Facing It 2010," a re-recording of a song they wrote for their debut full-length Late (MORR 046CD/LP), they hardly use electronic elements at all. This, however, doesn't affect the fundamental nature of Duo505's music: Walzer Oder Nicht ultimately shows that their tracks work both as acoustic and electronic versions. These recordings are somewhat reminiscent of The Velvet Underground (at their catchiest), of Yo La Tengo's sense of melody, or the kind of ballads Brian Eno or Zach Condon are known for. Make no mistake: even though Walzer Oder Nicht certainly has its noisier moments, some Tall Dwarfs-style clank and clatter even, this album is even more thoughtful, quiet and warm-hearted than its predecessors. Walzer Oder Nicht is an album that evokes child-like enthusiasm, ease, swing, and elegance.

Artist:	DUO505
Title:	Walzer Oder Nicht
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	MORR 103LP

LP version. This is the third album by Bernhard Fleischmann and Herbert Weixelbaum aka Duo505. Forget about lyrics to convey feelings or moods: it's all in the music, in the melodies and harmonies. After all, these tracks don't need words to say a whole lot. The same is true of their genesis: Bernhard Fleischmann and Herbert Weixelbaum hardly discussed any ideas or musical concepts while in the studio. Instead, these tracks simply emerged while they were playing together; the melodies grew out of a wordless conversation, an exchange of sounds and notes. This newfound collaborative spirit lies at the heart of Walzer Oder Nicht: the various tracks and layers intertwine and complement each other on a whole new level. That's how a song like "No Mail" came about, a track whose inner logic and intricate composition manages to captivate the listener entirely. Yet, it's not just the interlocking density that's new, as Duo505 present a whole new set of arrangements: above all, Fleischmann and Weixelbaum added guitars to the mix, which in turn means that the Roland MC-505 is no longer the predominant element of their sound. Case in point: On the opening track "Facing It 2010," a re-recording of a song they wrote for their debut full-length Late (MORR 046CD/LP), they hardly use electronic elements at all. This, however, doesn't affect the fundamental nature of Duo505's music: Walzer Oder Nicht ultimately shows that their tracks work both as acoustic and electronic versions. These recordings are somewhat reminiscent of The Velvet Underground (at their catchiest), of Yo La Tengo's sense of melody, or the kind of ballads Brian Eno or Zach Condon are known for. Make no mistake: even though Walzer Oder Nicht certainly has its noisier moments, some Tall Dwarfs-style clank and clatter even, this album is even more thoughtful, quiet and warm-hearted than its predecessors. Walzer Oder Nicht is an album that evokes child-like enthusiasm, ease, swing, and elegance. Includes a free download code.

Artist:	SIN FANG
Title:	Summer Echoes
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 104CD

This is the second album by Iceland's new king of lo-fi layered lushness Sindri Már Sigfússon and his solo-project Sin Fang (he dropped the "Bous"). Sigfússon is now already his 4th album release (including 2 records from his other musical outlet Seabear) since 2007. The album oscillates wildly, unearthing glimpses of familiarity -- vintage Flying Nun here, Paw Tracks there and a Belle And Sebastian pop sensibility -- while retaining the stark originality of this uber-talented artist and producer. After having set himself the task of playing all instruments on his debut solo album Clangour (MORR 088CD/LP), this time around Sigfússon wanted to move closer to the sound of a live band and recruited a number of his friends from múm, Amiina and Seabear to record Summer Echoes in his own studio and Sigur Rós' Sundlaugin studio. The arrangements are more band-oriented, grander in scope and more transparent than their predecessor's and there is a diverse breadth of sounds across Summer Echoes' dozen songs, reaching from a heartbreaking intimate piano ballad like "Two Boys" to sudden outbursts of guitar noise in "Bruises." Not even the one-off appearance of synthetic beats in "Sing For A Dream" sound out of place when drenched in Sin Fang's signature layered wash of sound and it is the album's first single, "Because Of The Blood" that encapsulates the essence of this album in a euphoric orchestral pop song that manages to merge epic tune-sculpting with several layers of choir abundance. The fact that Sigfússon did not only write all the music but also was doing most of the recording and production promises a lot for his future and Summer Echoes conveys the feeling that the real story has only just begun: and in fact, a next Sin Fang album is already fully written and Sigfússon shows no willingness to slow down. The artwork for the release was done together with Sigfússon's partner Inga Birgisdóttir.

Artist:	FM BELFAST
Title:	Don't Want To Sleep
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 105CD

This is the second studio-length album from FM Belfast. For the past four years, this Icelandic electro-pop group have been perfecting the art of reading an audience and connecting with it, using their steadily-growing skills to hone a music that catches easily, yet runs deep; an art of performing that can -- and usually does -- induce unique and euphoric states in large crowds of people, or just in your headphones. It is harsh and technical, warm and embracing and organic, thoughtful and giddy and cool and inclusive. Those who have ever seen them perform or listened to their debut, How To Make Friends (KRCD 012CD/ KRLP 012LP), can and will verify this. Don't Want To Sleep is a logical conclusion to two years of making friends and taking in experiences and sounds and adventure. It is also a worthy successor to their debut, a natural progression that retains its predecessor's spirit and builds upon it while exploring new territories. The songs retain the bouncy and joyful spirit of How To Make Friends, yet veer off into territories that the band have hitherto left unexplored. There are slow songs and introspective ones; calm, drifting meditations mixed with calls to arms and potential dancefloor workouts. Tracks like the beautiful "Noise" and "We Fall" depict serene dreamscapes that still burst with power and rhythm. The understated "Winter," with its anxious bite and underlying warmth, captures the essence of the overpowering Icelandic winter in its suffocating embrace. "Vertigo" entices and enthralls and "American" bops, gallops and is impossible not to sing along to. It is rare that an album will make you want to dance while possessing the ability to lull you to sleep (you'll have dreams of dancing). Don't Want To Sleep is such an album, a friend in early morning and late at night. The songs were written and recorded by FM Belfast (guests include Retro Stefson's Unnsteinn Manúel, Borko's Borko and mighty trumpeter Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson), produced and recorded by Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson and mixed by Kristinn Sturluson, Gunnar Örn Tynes and Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson. Helmut Erler mastered the thing at Dubplates & Mastering, and the cover was designed by the band and Bobby Breiðholt.

Artist:	BUTCHER THE BAR
Title:	For Each A Future Tethered
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 106CD

Joel Nicholson first gave us a glimpse of his deepest thoughts in 2008 with his debut as Butcher The Bar Sleep At Your Own Speed (MORR 082CD/LP), an album that dealt with the fleet-footed uncertainties of growing up -- recorded in the intimate light of his bedroom. Since then, Joel has moved into a whole house in Manchester, the rooms of which must be sunny and flooded with light, for the latest songs, with all their delicate melodies, conjure up images of sparkling particles of dust dancing in the sunlight. Taken as a whole, the songs on For Each A Future Tethered make an album, and its an album with which Joel not only continues telling his own personal story, but which adds a new chapter to the history of great songwriting in the tradition of musicians like Nick Drake, Paul Simon and Elliott Smith. Nicholson has also shown new sides to his creativity in his arrangements. While the songs on the debut album were largely based on the traditional folk instrumentation of guitar, banjo and vocals, on For Each A Future Tethered there's a wider range of musical accompaniment, with the inclusion of trumpets, clarinets, harmoniums and pianos to name a few, resulting in a richer, fuller sound. The music is somewhat reminiscent of label mates Seabear, on "Bobby" for example, but also of indie-pop greats such as The Lucksmiths. Some songs -- like the confident lullaby "Cradle Song" and "Blood For The Breeze" -- could be folk standards, while others set new standards for folk music. Right from the word go, the opening number "Sign Your Name" shows an astonishing measure of depth and tremendous fluidity, where Joel's voice becomes entwined in the sound of the instruments. Butcher The Bar play folk-pop with a big heart, and anyone who ever wanted to throw their arms around the whole world should feel loved back when listening to this album.

Artist:	SOLEY
Title:	We Sink
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	MORR 107CD

This is the first full-length release from Iceland's Sóley Stefánsdóttir. The bespectacled multi-instrumentalist from Iceland had been around the world and back with her band, Seabear, when she finally discovered her own vocal skills. Even though Sóley sings non-stop in private, creating a musical backdrop to pretty much everything she does, it just took her a while to get used to the sound of her own voice. It's the sound of this voice that's at the very core of her intricate compositions, tracks that flare like a bunch of magic lanterns, taking shape, growing hazy, flaming up once again, then moving on. Sóley sans Seabear is basically a storyteller who has come up with her very own wonderland. Meet her on the street and she seems rather introverted; yet, she's far from shy in this self-created musical sphere, a sonic realm she freely expands, stakes out, reinvents, turns upside-down. Throughout the album, Sóley spins one yarn after the next; at one point, unfortunate "Smashed Birds" have to give their feathers for a new dress, while the guitar, making a special appearance, sets the tone. Elsewhere, she focuses on the moment when a dream is exposed as such, this time over a huge sonic expanse drowned in reverb. Song after song, the former student of composition manages to combine seemingly disparate elements with stunning ease -- a snap of her fingers and a click of the tongue. After Theater Island, 2010's 6-track EP, Sóley presents an album full of rhythmic, makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. These tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the CocoRosie sisters circa 2004, but clearly better-trained and less crooked. In other words: her voice, those loops moving around like wooden toys, and finally the piano -- that's the backbone, the essence of her compositions; at least until some unexpected element appears.

Artist:	SOLEY
Title:	We Sink
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	MORR 107LP

Gatefold 2LP version featuring a vinyl etching on side D. This is the first full-length release from Iceland's Sóley Stefánsdóttir. The bespectacled multi-instrumentalist from Iceland had been around the world and back with her band, Seabear, when she finally discovered her own vocal skills. Even though Sóley sings non-stop in private, creating a musical backdrop to pretty much everything she does, it just took her a while to get used to the sound of her own voice. It's the sound of this voice that's at the very core of her intricate compositions, tracks that flare like a bunch of magic lanterns, taking shape, growing hazy, flaming up once again, then moving on. Sóley sans Seabear is basically a storyteller who has come up with her very own wonderland. Meet her on the street and she seems rather introverted; yet, she's far from shy in this self-created musical sphere, a sonic realm she freely expands, stakes out, reinvents, turns upside-down. Throughout the album, Sóley spins one yarn after the next; at one point, unfortunate "Smashed Birds" have to give their feathers for a new dress, while the guitar, making a special appearance, sets the tone. Elsewhere, she focuses on the moment when a dream is exposed as such, this time over a huge sonic expanse drowned in reverb. Song after song, the former student of composition manages to combine seemingly disparate elements with stunning ease -- a snap of her fingers and a click of the tongue. After Theater Island, 2010's 6-track EP, Sóley presents an album full of rhythmic, makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. These tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the CocoRosie sisters circa 2004, but clearly better-trained and less crooked. In other words: her voice, those loops moving around like wooden toys, and finally the piano -- that's the backbone, the essence of her compositions; at least until some unexpected element appears. Includes mp3 download code.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Backyard
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD/DVD
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	MORR 108CD

Backyard is a realization and celebration of Reykjavík's creative spirit. It is the embodiment of what happens when a group of friends work hard at implementing and executing an idea, and it is simply because they're having fun! It is pure joy on celluloid, and you should join this party, which features performances by múm, FM Belfast, Sin Fang, Hjaltalín, Retro Stefson, Borko & Reykjavík!. Most of them are internationally known due to their releases on Morr Music and Kimi Records. This is what happened: after he had successfully organized a concert (featuring eight bands in 12 hours), Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson (of FM Belfast fame) found himself pretty amazed by the energy and velocity of his local scene. He thought: "I should throw a party like this in my own backyard." So he invited all his friends and favorite local bands to play a show in his small backyard over the course of a couple of days. And he also invited filmmaker Árni Sveinsson. The bands don't sound anything alike -- they are all doing their own thing. What they share is a friendship, a mentality and approach that surpasses any superficial differences. This is not so much what you would call a "scene." It's a group of friends: take Borko kicking off the movie with his lo-fi majesty against Hjaltalín's intricate baroque; múm's delicate patchwork against Reykjavík!'s drunken artwork or FM Belfast's ungovernable will to party (which marks the grand finale, here). It's all there, and it works together because the shared idea is not a sound, but a feeling. This feeling is perfectly captured in Backyard. The DVD comes with a CD of original live music from Backyard. DVD Information: Film length: 71 mins. Bonus material length: 18 mins. Directed by: Árni Sveinsson. NTSC format, ALL-Region DVD; picture format: 16:9; sound format: stereo; language: Icelandic.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Morr Music Japan Tour 2004
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR TOUR002CD

This was a promo-only release for Japan, initially. Everything that's on here is exclusive to this release, so make sure you grab it while you can as it includes that incredible ISAN track so many have enquired about. Some of you may even have delighted at the Japanese folk song "Akatombo" specially remodified by Robin and Toe. It's one of the best things they've ever done and it features on this CD in all its 3-minute glory -- absolutely fabulous stuff. Also included are two more exclusive ISAN tracks, plus two offerings from Styrofoam (doing cover versions of all-time heroes Lou Barlow and Elliott Smith), a sneaky peek at The Go Find plus a Styrofoam remix. Seven tracks wide, 28 minutes.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN/TARWATER, B.
Title:	Morr Music Japan Tour 2005
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	MORR TOUR004CD

2005 tour-only release, distributed in the U.S. for the first time. To celebrate their Japanese 2005 tour, Bernhard Fleischmann and Tarwater decided to put an EP together, with Fleischmann providing two alternative versions of tracks and Tarwater providing three exclusive tracks. Anyone who has heard Fleischmann's The Humbucking Coil will already know "From To" and "Broken Monitors," but hearing them in these new-and-improved versions is a pleasure and a privilege -- the tracks are fleshed out with effects and distortion which makes them feel more fun and freer than their predecessors. Fleischmann's unmatched sense of melody brings to mind the absolute cream of melodic electronic music, yet his tracks do not sound contrived or copyist. Tarwater also don't disappoint, with their first offering "Cassedy" sounding like a 1950s slow dance as realized by the BBC Radiophonic workshop -- the EP's highlight and an incredible view of exactly what Morr Music is all about -- alternative and unusual pop music, pure and simple.

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Artist:	STYROFOAM
Title:	A Heart Without A Mind EP
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	MORR 034EP

Artist:	YEAR OF
Title:	Slow Days
Label:	MORR MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	MORR 066CD