Following in the footsteps of the pathbreaking Minna Miteru compilation of Japanese indie music, Morr Music and Alien Transistor have again joined forces to release The Fruit Of Errata, a compilation introducing the world to the intimate DIY pop of yumbo. Led by songwriter, pianist, and occasional vocalist Koji Shibuya, the Japanese band has released four albums since forming in 1998. This compilation draws fifteen songs (eighteen on vinyl) from those albums, and some ancillary releases, to uncover a biographical narrative of yumbo, showing how Shibuya’s songwriting, and the group’s limber, sensitive playing, has developed over the decades. It also places them squarely within a tradition of home-spun but ambitious Japanese pop that takes in Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Tenniscoats, Nagisa Ni Te, Yuzo Iwata, Kazumi Nikaido and more.

yumbo is very much the vision of Shibuya, an amiable iconoclast whose songs seem informed by some of his early listening – there’s the playful seriousness of Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s Tori Kudo here, an avowed long-time hero for Shibuya, but also the flexibility of freely improvised music. You can also hear Shibuya’s fondness for Mayo Thompson and The Red Crayola in both the idiosyncracies of the writing and the egalitarian looseness of the playing. Shibuya also carries those energies into the group’s membership – there are fantastic stories of him having a conversation at a record shop, or overhearing someone speaking, and asking the person in question to join yumbo as one of their various singers. He seems open to chance as a driving force, as a way to make space for unexpected possibilities to blossom.

The great achievement of yumbo and Shibuya, though, is translating all of this into beautiful, unpredictable pop songs. There’s a gorgeous soul-inflected lilt to “A House” that makes it delightfully affecting; the swaying brass on “Storm” propels its melody to a moody, dreamlike conclusion; the nakedness of “The Sweetest Mass” is slightly reminiscent of Carla Bley’s more pop-focused writing, crossed with the classicism of the songs that spilled from the Brill Building in the ‘60s. Throughout, Shibuya renders pop a deeply personal experience; you can hear musings here on friendship, family, intimacy, the complexity of relationships, mortality, and imbalances of power. These musings are also shadowed by real-life events: the effects and impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 are captured in songs like “Umbrella People” from Onibi.

Throughout the performances on The Fruit Of Errata, Shibuya and the group play with tenderness; they also often draw on other players to flesh out the music even further, two such guests being the aforementioned Tori Kudo (on “Umbrella People”) and Olympia, Washington’s LAKE (on “The Devil Song”). Community-minded and generous in approach, the writing of Shibuya and the music of yumbo is never less than lovely, and The Fruit Of Errata is a welcome introduction to their world. Open and gentle, confident and generous, these pop songs are filled with charm and spirit.

The Fruit Of Errata

LP/CD

yumbo: A House

Múm
Smilewound
Morr Music - MORR124
You don't need to be Freud to regard teeth as a delicate issue. They can make joy look joyous and pain look painful, and on the cover of the new múm album they do both at the same time. As "Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is Okay" (2001), "Finally We Are No One" (2002) and "Sing Along To Songs You Don't Know" (2009) "Smilewound" is another example of the band's art of juxtaposing two conflicting meanings and taking advantage of the energy created through the tension between both.
Sparser in sound than many of its predecessors, "Smilewound" is an airy, relaxed record. The múm-core-duo of Örvar and Gunni doesn't make you laugh out loud (except maybe for the quirky vintage Arcade-sound-start of "When Girls Collide"), but it will make you smile often - despite the heavenly voices singing about violence in one form or another in most songs. Musically, múm's capability to build playful electronic sound-ornaments around simple melodies is in full bloom. And these days they know that trimming the ornamentation can strengthen the melody. Take "The Colorful Stabwound": an aguish drum'n'bass piece and"Smilewound" gets close to a straight pop-song. Even that isn't very close, but it combines its rhythmic strength with a simple yet effective piano-line and the soothing lushness of a female voice to something compelling that follows you like the smell of a delicate eau de toilette. Or "Candlestick" which started out as a little ditty strummed on an acoustic guitar many years ago and has grown into this bouncy piece of synth-pop that changes its musical colours every couple of beats until you feel comfortably dizzy. Perfect pop in very fancy clothes. No wonder that antipodean pop-princess Kylie Minogue wanted to collaborate with múm on the "Whistle", the main song in 2012-movie "Jack & Diane".
Recorded in, among other places, the band's practice-space, an old baltic farmhouse and on the kitchen-table after dinner, the album was produced by múm themselves. And being the revolving collective they are, it comes as no surprise that we see the return of former member Gyda. Defining satellites as part of the core fits nicely with the band's penchant for ambivalence - in fact that's part of the album's charm.

Cat.no.: MORR124
Format: CD/LP

Tracklisting
1. Toothwheels 
2. Underwater Snow 
3. When Girls Collide 
4. Slow Down 
5. Candlestick 
6. One Smile 
7. Eternity Is The Wait Between Breaths 
8. The Colorful Stabwound 
9. Sweet Impressions 
10. Time To Scream And Shout 
11. Whistle (With Kylie) 1. Toothwheels 
2. Underwater Snow 
3. When Girls Collide 
4. Slow Down 
5. Candlestick 
6. One Smile 
7. Eternity Is The Wait Between Breaths 
8. The Colorful Stabwound 
9. Sweet Impressions 
10. Time To Scream And Shout 
11. Whistle (With Kylie)

Release Dates:
Sep 06, 2013 (Worldwide) 
Sep 17, 2013 (US)

múm - When Girls Collide

FensterThe Pink Caves
Morr Music - MORR127

Fenster's second record The Pink Caves is a dark fairy tale brimming with layers of tremolo guitars, tactile percussion, soft analog synths and moon-dusted vocal melodies. The tracks take you on a slow-motion free fall through the rabbit hole into an ethereal world of spectral soundscapes, lush pop opulence and minimalism drawing inspiration from science fiction, french 70s film scores and Lynchian mysticism. Work began on The Pink Caves in early 2013. A home studio was set up in a cabin in East Germany and the whole house was wired so every room contained different elements, set up in such a way that they were able to record live altogether. As a result The Pink Caves radiates with an intuitive and spontaneous approach to noise experimentation. 
With this record, Fenster ventures into new spaces, exploring different techniques, instrumentation and song structures. The album's title and aesthetic derive from the concept of a make-belief heaven, a place you go when you die that only exists in your mind. Welcome to The Pink Caves!

Fenster is: Jonathan Jarzyna, JJ Weihl, Rémi Letournelle, Lucas Chantre
Production: recorded and mixed by Tadklimp

Dates:

Dates:
17.02.2014 — Hamburg (DE) — Hafenklang (w/ Aloa Input)
18.02.2014 — Cologne (DE) — Studio 672 (w/ Aloa Input )
19.02.2014 — Munich (DE) — Milla (w/ Aloa Input)
20.02.2014 — Dresden (DE) — Ost-Pol (w/Aloa Input)
22.02.2014 — Berlin (DE) — Schwuz (Rec.release show w/ Aloa Input)
13.05.2014 - Hannover (DE) - Café Glocksee
15.05.2014 - London (UK) - Birthdays

Links:
www.fensterbones.com
www.facebook.com/fenstermusic
www.morrmusic.com

Fenster: Mirrors

Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center

Lp/Cd

The Notwist: Sans Soleil

Artist: Seabear
Track : Lion Face Boy
Album: We built a fire
www.myspace.com/seabear

Seabear - Lion Face Boy

Jan 2010:
The story of Lali Puna is inextricably linked to that of the Morr Music label itself. The band's classic Tridecoder album was the second ever release on the imprint back in 1999 and set a new template for electronic rock music that's remained in place ever since. In parallel, Morr and Lali Puna have evolved from humble, experimental beginnings before eventually coming to represent the vanguard of modern pop.
Fronted by singer and keyboard player Valerie Trebeljahr, Lali Puna's line-up is completed by drummer Christoph Brandner (also of Tied & Tickled Trio), keyboard player Christian Heiß and Markus Acher - an artist already highly regarded for his work as part of The Notwist. Over a decade of recording together this band have continued to grow in strength, confidence and studio expertise, cueing up a triumphant return to full operational capability on Our Inventions. The album's title was in place early on, helping inspire the sonic template for what's surely Lali Puna's most sophisticated and emphatically electronic collection of work to date. More than ever these songs place the group at the cutting edge of their art, facing up to the onset of an abstract, digitised future whilst retaining a timeless sense of musical ingenuity and endeavour.
It took fellow Weilheim luminaries The Notwist until their sixth album to finally reach worldwide recognition, breaking through with 2002's Neon Golden. Now, with Our Inventions, Lali Puna seem poised to crossover in a similarly incendiary fashion. In an age when the very notion of an album seems like an outmoded conceit, Lali Puna are a band that both demand and amply reward the investment of their audience over a full-length narrative. Our Inventions is a defiantly complete listening experience - one that exudes craftsmanship and captures the band at the peak of their powers as songwriters.

www.lalipuna.de
www.myspace.com/morrlalipuna


Lali Puna - Remember

There are strange forces at work, lurking underneath the shiny, impeccable surface of this place: Looming behind all those perfect little fence posts and neighborly smiles, there's a sense of isolation, of emptiness, a hint of claustrophobia, that fear of being in the wrong place, too far removed from where things are really happening. It's true: darkness has fallen upon suburbia. Welcome to the unadorned world of Innhverfi.

Using a play on the Icelandic words for "suburbs" and "introvert" for its title, Innhverfi is the debut solo album from Sigur Rós' and Jónsi's touring keyboard player/percussionist Óbó – in his passport it says Ólafur Björn Ólafsson –, and although comprised of no more than 7 compositions, it does run the gamut of suburban bliss turned upside down: After the LP's minimalistic opener "Úthverfi", a track that melancholically opens up after a long, immensely dark and brooding intro, that ultimately offers some respite in the form of playful Glockenspiel over layers of slow-moving sonic lava, the equally cinematic "Svartur galdur" leaves much room for Óbó's trademark baritone: Like a bespectacled puppeteer with fluffy hair, he seems to shuffle and rearrange home-recorded bits and lullaby-like DIY pieces in front of our very eyes, which can't help but follow, as we move deeper into the somewhat forlorn suburban landscape that has inspired this record. Imagine dark, wet streets, overcast little alleys, and suddenly a cat or a candle on a windowsill, breathing slowly.

Elsewhere, "Gjallarhornin" – all spoken words, piano, strings, vibraphone, rearranged like a whirlwind in slow-motion – makes way for a hopeful oomph deferred and silent-movie era melodies, while "Stilla", an instrumental, commences like early Efterklang, but there's no gaudiness on the horizon: When the subtle electronics and percussions erupt in the end, it all feels just right – if only for a brief moment. Finally, the subdued birdsong and jazz-inspired piano of "Fyrirbo∂i" underline that Ólafsson has worked on motion picture soundtracks in the past – e.g. The Good Heart, Steypa –, and before it all ends, he even throws in a foot-stompin' alt-pop song of sorts ("Rétt e∂a rangt?"). The last stop of this journey into the haunting underbelly of the suburban mind is "Gullregn": A creaking door that opens to unveil his own garden of forking paths, a place where one can still decide, shake things up, jump the fence and run, leave before it's too late. It's pure possibility, presented in a golden light.

Although Innhverfi is his debut effort as a solo artist, Óbó's musical handwriting has been all over the Icelandic map in recent years: A multi-instrumentalist and a wizard on percussions, he studied piano and later composition in various European cities and has performed and recorded with artists such as Sigur Rós, Jónsi, Emiliana Torrini, Stórsveit Nix Noltes, slowblow, Benni Hemm Hemm, múm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Úlfur Hansson and Valgeir Sigur∂sson, to name a few.

Though few will be able to understand the lyrics in his native Icelandic, one thing is certain: Innhverfi is the very antidote to the affliction and troubles it sketches out. Turns out we've been in the right place all along.

Buy On Itunes

Óbó: Rett Eda Rangt?

Taken from "Mars ETC." the new album from Aloa Input.
Coming March 2015
Tour:
21.03.2015 — Dresden (DE) — Reithalle (w/ The Notwist )
22.03.2015 — Warszawa (PL) — Proxima (w/ The Notwist)
23.03.2015 — Krakow (PL) — Fabryka (w/ The Notwist)
24.03.2015 — Prague (CZ) — Palac Akropolis (w/ The Notwist)
25.03.2015 — Graz (AT) — Generalmusikdirection (w/ The Notwist)

Follow Aloa Input  for updates:
www.facebook.com/aloainput

Morr Music
Follow: http://twitter.com/morrmusic
Like: http://facebook.com/morrmusic
Website: http://morrmusic.com

Buy on itunes

Aloa Input: Far Away Sun

Taken from "Ask the deep" the new album from Sóley. Coming May 8th 2015

Referring to the silence that returns when last year’s “Krómantík” EP fades out, Sóley said, “… your closed eyes slowly start seeing something much deeper and darker,” and now that something is here, it’s right in front of us: “Ask The Deep” is a stunningly dark and deeply personal departure after the minimalist and bleak piano compositions of said EP: Relying on guts, ghost ships, and a sonic map that doesn’t show the same piano coordinates as before, her soft-sounding voice leads us deeper and deeper into the shadowy fairytale worlds only hinted at on previous releases such as her “Theater Island” EP and 2011’s much-praised “We Sink” debut album. Changing tactics to fight her inner demon with every track, “Ask The Deep” sees the bespectacled songwriter open Pandora’s box – and close it eventually. At least for now.  

Follow Sóley for updates:
www.facebook.com/soleysoleysoley
www.morrmusic.com


Sóley: Ævintýr

Buy the song on itunes: http://bit.ly/169P5L5
Preorder the album on itunes.: http://bit.ly/1Cp4HZn

Whereas last time around, they were all about "vocal harmonies from NYC to Cape Town" and "massive guitars from Portland to Düsseldorf, mixed with clattering beats from Berlin to Detroit" Aloa Input – a Munich-based three-piece that seems to be just as addicted to new input as it's quick and productive when it comes to releasing more genre-smashing, ebullient output – are about to leave planet earth altogether with their sophomore release: Dropping only a year after the band's debut album "Anysome" (with additional remix EP "RMX" released in-between), they return with an album that finds them dashing through the better part of recent music history, to eventually take off for the Red Planet: "MARS ETC." is terrestrial life condensed, an experimental study in hands-on, sonic set theory, both a stunningly wild and unbridled beast of an album and a long-overdue update to 1977's Voyager Golden Records.

Aloa Input: Perry

Taken from "Emocean" the original motion picture soundtrack out on Morr Music Sept.4th 2015.
Soundtrack Release Concert & Movie Premiere August. 26th at Berghain / Pop- Kultur Festival.
PRE-ORDER Cd / LP Item ships around AUG 27th 2015!
https://anost.net/Products/Fenster-Emocean/
Pre-order the album on itunes: http://bit.ly/1KMXq9U
Follow Fenster:
https://www.facebook.com/fe...
https://www.fensterfensterf...
https://www.morrmusic.com

Fenster: Memories

After "Theater Island," last year's 6-track EP, Sóley returns with her first full-length, an album full of rhythmic makeshift creatures, of handclaps hidden in the undergrowth, tempting us to join in. The 13 tracks are sometimes incredibly catchy; amazingly quirky at other times: think cardigan-folk from the northern hemisphere, an ocean of stained glasses bopping up and down in the shared apartment's dishwater, leeward in limbo. The result is refreshing in its lack of edginess; think Joanna Newsom minus her harp, or the Casady sisters circa 2004, but then clearly better trained, 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 elsewhere, a rhythmic creaking or the lack thereof, like a hidden Rube Goldberg machine, setting off yet another component, thus paving the way across the threshold and on into the next realm of sound. And thus we keep on sinking, deeper and deeper, until we stand on terra firma once again, realizing that somehow, next to us, above us, around us, a beat is laid out, hesitantly moving along at first, then careering… 

Sóley: I'll Drown

Taken from the new EP "Noyaux" - out Nov. 6th  2015 on Morr Music.
Buy the single on iTunes: api.morrmusic.com/itunes/1044652779
Follow Benoît Pioulard for updates:
http://pioulard.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pioulard
www.morrmusic.com

Buy on iTunes

Benoît Pioulard: Noyaux

Taken from "Sundur" out on Morr Music August 19th 2016
Buy the album: http://bit.ly/2aZaax6

Sundur

Buy the album

Pascal Pinon: 53

Out on Morr Music 2016-11-11
With his latest record, Notwist singer & guitar player, film soundtracker and label boss Markus Acher, aka Rayon, offers up a sparse, intoxicating LP of instrumentals.
As the name suggests, the spaces between notes here are treated with as much gravity as the notes themselves – arpeggios spiralling upwards, conflicting yet interlocking in a dizzying overlap of time signatures.
An obvious reference point is Javanese gamelan, with its ensemble of hand-beaten metallophones and bamboo flutes, pulling in all directions at once and yet, like a starling murmuration, maintaining shape as one, rippling whole.
Eschewing electronic equipment, the title track sees marimbaphone, piano and vibraphone appearing to mimic a delay pedal, giving the effect of rain falling with odd regiment into a singing bowl.
This melancholy but weirdly uplifting arrangement surfaces throughout the record, punctuated by mossy synth hums and subterranean rustling. Like much of Rayon’s work, “A Beat of Silence” beams across like a soundtrack for some forgotten documentary: dusty archive footage of cities being built and eroded in time-lapse seeming to flicker across the screen.

Closing tracks “To the Quiet”, a tentative, almost impossibly fragile ballad, and “Kona”, a stretched and mangled wash of orchestral drone akin to Plinth or Edmund Finnis, leave the listener fully enveloped, as this incredibly sensitive work draws to a close.

Richard Greenan (Kit Records, Devon Loch)

A Beat of Silence

Buy The Single

Rayon: Dots

Taken from "Glass Bird Movement" -  CD/Digital/LP+7" 
Out Oct. 14th on morr music

On their first album in six years, ISAN once more weave together electronic soundscapes, delicate rhythms and the occasional odd sound into a pulsating, ever-morphing whole. Glass Bird Movement is Antony Ryan and Robin Saville’s eighth studio album since they have started the project two decades ago. Exchanging ideas between England and Denmark, where Ryan currently resides, ISAN have crafted an album which is reminiscent of heyday Boards Of Canada productions, the friendlier ventures of Aphex Twin or the most focused moments of Ulrich Schnauss, if you will. However, this album (as well their impressive back catalogue, as subtle it may seem) displays a strong signature. ISAN constantly move forwards without leaving their respective studios. And why should they - it’s warm and dry in there and the kettle is always boiling. 


Glass Bird Movement

Buy The Album

ISAN: Parley Glove

Taken from "Endless Summer" out on Morr Music May 2017
Buy the single: https://api.morrmusic.com/itunes/1204887922
Tour Dates: http://bit.ly/2lAm0EL
Sóley's Homepage: http://soleysoley.is/
Sóley's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soleysoleysoley
Sóley's Twitter: https://twitter.com/soleysoleysoley
Sóley's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soleysoleysoley/

Sóley’s latest offering is the warmth beneath the snow at the end of winter, the seeds waiting to grow as spring whispers to us. From the heavy organs, synths, and minor keys of her last album Ask The Deep, 'Endless Summer' emerges with a kind of hopeful sweetness, and feels even more vulnerable, as Sóley climbs with us to incandescence. "The idea for the album came pretty randomly one night in beginning of January 2016 when I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a note to myself: ‘Write about hope and spring’," she says about the LP’s general direction. "So I painted my studio in yellow and purple, bought a grand piano, sat down and started playing, singing and writing."

And 'Endless Summer' delivers just that, opening with the song "Úa" (named after her young daughter) that washes over us like a hopeful dream. It’s based on an adventurous acoustic arrangement reminiscent of Joanna Newsom or Agnes Obel, which sets the tone for what is to follow in its wake. Throughout the new album, Sóley’s arrangements for a small orchestra give 'Endless Summer' a colorful touch: Take, for example, the track "Never Cry Moon", in which the sound of clarinet, trombone and cello beautifully engulf Sóley’s repetitive piano playing.

Comprised of eight songs, 'Endless Summer' is an album that’s grounded in fertile wisdom. Not just an ethereal dream of love and light, but a subtle, accumulative wisdom, a conscious choice to cling to vitality. One might say that one of Sóley’s signatures is the childlike wonder in her lyrics, and 'Endless Summer' delivers the same wonder, but with a kind of reverence for it, for she’s no longer a wanderer in a nightmare, but an enchanted lover of mystery.

With the album’s title track, "Endless Summer", Sóley soothes the wandering mind in her lyricism, asking: "Did you see the stars?/Did you see the sun come up?/You can find me in the flowers/You can find yourself some peace."

'Endless Summer' is like the Icelandic summer, a liminal, endless turning, a shift of consciousness, an endless awakening of continual brightness not without the acknowledgement of winter; it is the eruption from which the rebirth of light emerges.

Endless Summer

Sóley: Never Cry Moon

taken from "Parabolabandit" out on Morr Music Oct. 2017 
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2x13awQ 
Apple: http://bit.ly/2yvKiCw 
Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2xHCbDs 
Follow Sequoyah Tiger 
Facebook: facebook.com/sequoyahtiger/ 
Instagram: instagram.com/sequoyah_tiger/

Sequoyah Tiger: Punta Otok

"Two Windows" out on Morr Music Sept 8th 2017 
Get the Lp/Cd:
https://anost.net/en/Products/Lali-Puna-Two-Windows/
Follow Lali Puna
Homepage: http://www.lalipuna.de/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lalipunaband/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lalipuna_ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lali.puna/

Two Windows

Lali Puna: Deep Dream

Taken from „Light Is Liquid" out on Morr Music May. 2018 Pre-Order the album:  https://orvarsmarason.lnk.to/LightIsLiquidID
Follow Örvar Smárason: Facebook: http://bit.ly/2EViteB Instagram: http://bit.ly/2oB5K5B

Light Is Liquid

Light is Liquid

Buy LP/CD

Örvar Smárason: Tiny Moon

MS John Soda first was a project by Stefanie Böhm (Couch) from Munich. Over the years it became a real band. Nowadays Stefanie Böhm is playing with Micha Acher (the Notwist), Thomas Geltinger (Couch) & Carl Oesterheld (FSK). MS John Soda released both of their albums on Morr Music. 

MS. John Soda: Outlined View

It is the year 1998: What might have been the first decade in the history of pop music that was characterized by an overwhelming sense of fragmentation is drawing to a close. Anything goes: guitars & electro, retro sounds or wicked forays into the digitized future. Pop hasn’t sounded this optimistic and upbeat in a while, and there’s currently no need for Weltschmerz in Indie anymore. Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason have been making music together as múm for about a year at this point – though it’s not like anyone really took note of them or cared back in 1998.
The two band mates are basically nomadic drifters: They are constantly moving from one basement studio to the next, traveling through Europe, recording anything and everything that comes to mind. Whenever they feel like getting some fresh air, they go out with their DAT recorders to do some field recordings – only to return to some unfurnished apartment in Reykjavík, Montpellier or Berlin in order to mix and combine all the recorded material. Accordingly, the duo indeed also pushes the level of fragmentation in music. However, múm do not have set ideas or a clear mission. All they do is sample, play around, mix, recombine things, and ultimately marvel at the results. And then, at a theater production, Gunnar and Örvar meet twin sisters Kristín and Gyða. And then there were four.
Early Birds is all about those days: It’s a compilation of 15 tracks, all of them recorded between 1998-2000 and long-lost or extremely rare, taken from demo tapes or limited edition vinyl releases. Accordingly, you’ll find not only a track from the aforementioned theater production, but also the yet-unreleased “Hvernig á að særa vini sína”, a fan favorite ever since, that was included on the soundtrack to the movie The Exploding Girl.
múm had a trademark even back in the earliest days: their compositions were all about melodies. Yet, that’s about the only thing these 15 songs have in common. Especially the first half of the compilation focuses more on the playful, “full of beans”-type of experimental tracks: pastiche and experimentation are key, and it’s anything goes indeed: they go from hyped-up pre-Electronica sound to jazzy Drum & Bass, and they aren’t even afraid to present a double-neck guitar solo à la Hair Metal done kiddie style. However, as said above, all the early experiments nevertheless share a certain signature sound. The second half of the album is comprised of those quieter, rather massive múm tracks, with only a few analog layers, harmonious and blissful, revolving around each other for minutes. These tracks are somehow reminiscent of minimal music, but then again they are simply too charming, too wistful and clearly not made for academics.
Early Birds ends with a contemplative piece that’s 10 minutes long and comprised of field recordings, harmonica, accordion, and lots of room for reverb (you could almost call it Dub). In this case the song title pretty much translates to “No one was listening to the fiddler, because the fiddle-strings were broken (why can’t you be good to your mother?)”. This final track ultimately became the “Ballad Of The Broken String” on múm’s debut album “Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK” (2001), though this early version is indeed quite different. When the debut dropped, múm had found their sound. The rest is history: The band was hailed as a key exponent of “Electronica”, and with every release they sounded more and more unique and complete – only to become what might be Iceland’s most original band today.
Early Birds showcases the formative years and perfectly illustrates this evolution, though at the same time it shows that things could’ve turned out quite differently. Plus, it also proves one other thing: Yesterday was OK, too.
The compilation album comes with nostalgic artwork by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir who experienced the early days of múm first hand. Both the LP and CD version include a booklet that explains how each of the 15 (mostly instrumental) tracks came about.



múm - 0,000Orð

Taken from "Cloud Formations" out on Morr Music 2019-05-07 
Lp/CD: https://bit.ly/2JVop9t 
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2GWQJWn 
iTunes: https://apple.co/2ZS2Ifi 
Bandcamp: https://bit.ly/2PMrKYn

Follow Haleiwa
Homepage: www.haleiwamusic.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/haleiwamusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haleiwa__/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/haleiwamusic

Cloud Formations

03.05.2019

Itunes

Haleiwa: HKI -97

• Third and most accessible album by icelandic experimental pop artist Sin Fang
• Recorded & produced by Alex Somers (producer of Sigur Rós & Jónsi)
Although there is a certain reassuring quality to evergreens – you can rely on them to never drop their foliage – it’s the flowering plants, the ones that bud, blossom, and bloom, which really light up and even define a season. This is exactly what happens on Flowers, Sin Fang’s third solo album: Seabear’s founder and mastermind unlashes a melodic spring storm and explores even more corners of the lush and baroque gardens he spent the last five years in.
Following his Half Dreams EP, Flowers is a solo album that nevertheless opens with a lot of collective chanting, a sense of deep rootedness, togetherness, unity, shared experience: “We were young boys, smoking in the woods, I showed you how”, are the first words Sindri Már Sigfússon aka Sin Fang scatters across the less-beaten tracks, only to leapfrog across the lawn and switch on the stage lights for his own take of stadium pop. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with your ears: A song like “What’s Wrong With Your Eyes” would indeed sound infinitely awesome in a stadium setting – it’s so massive, so outspokenly pop, when the beat meets layered vocals and the piano comes in just at the right moments. “I was thinking a lot about pre-teenage and teenage feelings,” he explains. “The exaggerated feelings and dramatic thoughts that most teenagers go through: Love and rejection, the constant ups and downs... I thought Flowers was a good name for that theme as they are used both for sad and happy occasions.”
A few albums and EPs and make-shift DIY beards later (he went from paper to knitted goods and now likes them freshly watered and soon withering), Mr. Sigfússon has obviously learned how to cultivate the heaviest crops of the pops: indie-rooted but vast, quirky at times but crystal-clearly aiming at the stars in other places, there’s more tracks with huge sing-along gestures, more of that well-rounded surround experience now stripped of any insecurities. This is a bold statement that’s a million miles away from cliché Icelandic indie stuff, but instead shows that you can indeed be a sucker for outlandish prison tattoos and at the same time go for rather timeless orchestrations that unfold like springs, followed by summers and autumnal winds.
There’s clearly a ghost at work here, still carrying him away, as he gathers more and more rosebuds and moves from epically marching (“Look At The Light”) to overgrown power pop (“Not Enough”) and back via lots of oh-uh-oh-uh-oohs (going up and down like those distant hills you can’t stop staring at) to fast-paced bliss (“Sunbeam”). “Weird Heart” takes a look at the things one doesn’t care about as one gets older (“so many things don’t mean a thing to me”), while “Feel See” is a call for like-minded individuals out there, as it moves from section to section, pushing onwards, now hesitant and soft-spoken almost, soon hopeful about the answer to the question it poses: “Is there someone that feels like me, that there’s nothing to feel or see?” There’s lots. To feel. To see. To discover and dive into. At least in this garden there is.

Sin Fang - Young Boys

Taken from "Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK" (20th Anniversary Edition) out on Morr Music 2019-08-30
Tourdates:
Sep 17 – Rote Fabrik – Zurich (CH)
Sep 18 – Maroquinerie – Paris (FR)
Sep 19 – Church of Laken – Brussels (BE)
Sep 20 – Neuadd Ogwen – Bethesda (GB)
Sep 21 – Union Chapel – London (GB)
Sep 22 – Church of Sint-Denijs – Kortrijk (BE)
Sep 26 – Planetarium – Berlin (DE)
Sep 27 – Planetarium – Berlin (DE)
Sep 28 – Aglomerat – Moscow (RU)
Sep 29 – Opera – St Petersburg (RU)

Follow múm: www.facebook.com/mumtheband/
Follow Kronos Quartet: www.facebook.com/kronosquartet/
Follow Morr Music: www.facebook.com/morrmusicberlin/

Lp/Cd/Digital

Múm: Random Summer (Hauschka Rework)

Pascal PinonTwosomeness
Morr Music - MORR121

• second album by Pascal Pinon
• recorded & produced by Alex Somers (producer of Sigur Rós & Jónsi)

On Pascal Pinon’s Tumblr you’ll find an older photo that shows twin sisters Jófrídur and Ásthildur smiling proudly over a Yamaha keyboard circa 1999: Back then they weren’t even in their teens, far from it, and yet they were already shaping and creating that unique chemistry – a special bond that can only exist between siblings, twins especially. It is a very special connection, a rare gift to know another person on that level. And of course the old keyboard is also still around.
Thanks to this special bond, Pascal Pinon have managed to record a second album that’s way more bold, more mature, more focused and more diverse than its predecessor: “I don’t need anything/I just make something beautiful,” they sing on “Therney” (and they do sing in English more often than before), and apart from their own bedroom studio, equipped with cookies and tea and keyboards and guitars and such, they indeed don’t seem to need much to create a sense of homecoming – a musical home stretch, like a movie’s closing credits. Here you are, in a realm where everything seems to have fallen into place, or will do so soon enough, somehow.
And yet, this is merely the start of album #2: Having successfully toured Japan and other places, it’s not always three-minute songs for Pascal Pinon; sometimes a few moments are sufficient to create a certain mood (“Annar Logi”). Whereas album opener “Ekki Vanmeta” appears to be the Icelandic equivalent to a block party (no BBQ, but with muffins instead, the type they served at their very first gig ever, fittingly called “The Friendly Gig”), the “Bloom” is intricately moving along and shape-shifting like Gavin Bryars’ compositions – though Jófrídur, familiar with the instrument for 10 years, manages to ultimately turn it into something else: “It’s easy to become attached,” they sing. And it is indeed.
Still a four-piece when they recorded their s/t debut album – although the band name always indicated that the twins were in fact the heads of the operation: Pasqual Pinon (spelled like this), the Two-Headed Mexican (1889-1929), was a sideshow attraction in the early 1900s –, Pascal Pinon is now essentially comprised of Jófrídur and Ásthildur, with occasional help by Kristín (and then there’s also casual member Sylvía); together they have created a many-layered soundtrack to growing up on a volcanic island in the Atlantic: A small world of its own, with all its marvels, all its “Good and Bad Things” (though still untouched by McDonald’s, trains, and Starbucks). Even the fact that they used more than one microphone this time around does not take away from the characteristic DIY approach often found in Iceland’s bedrooms.
With album #2 about to drop, Pascal Pinon are about to enter adult life – a point usually associated with drifting apart, forgetting dreams. These girls, however, seem to be going the other direction instead: they appear to be closer, even more of an entity of its own, more of a two-headed being, less lonesome, but twosome, unified in sound.

Cat.no.: MORR121
Format: CD

Tracklisting
1. Ekki Vanmeta
2. Þerney (One Thing)
3. Somewhere
4. Evgeny Kissin
5. When I Can't Sleep
6. Annar Logi
7. Kertið
8. Sumarmál
9. Bloom
10. Fernando
11. Good And Bad Things
12. Rifrildi

Release Dates:
Jan 18, 2013 (Worldwide)
Feb 05, 2013 (US) 

Pascal Pinon: Þerney (One Thing)

"Hollow" out on Morr Music 2019-09-06 
Download/ Stream: https://linktr.ee/sinfang 
Follow Sin Fang:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sinfanggg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sinfanggg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sinfanggg

06.09.2019

Stream/Download

Sin Fang - Hollow

Taken from "Sylva" out on Morr Music 2019-11-15

Kranky veteran Benoît Pioulard (né Thomas Meluch) has created his first full-length for Morr Music, complemented by a linen book of Polaroid SX70 photographs from more than two years of environmental explorations. The music on Sylva and its 84-page visual companion bear the beauty and strange shapes of nature: desert rock formations and colorful leaves, restless waters and peculiar plants. Meluch’s dreamy ambient drones and saturated lo-fi pop embody the impressionist sensation of his visual aesthetic – with this collection sound and vision are merged into an affectionate study of the organic.

Sylva

Raze II

LP/CD/DL/BOOK

Benoît Pioulard: Raze II

Happy to share some new music from ISAN member Robin Saville today: "The Deepdale Halophyte Economy" is the first glance on the upcoming album "Build A Diorama". 9 minutes of ambient bliss, merging the aesthetics of his main project with field recordings & gentle drones. Available now everywhere, f.e. on Bandcamp, Spotify & Apple Music / iTunes.

The Deepdale Halophyte Economy

Stream/DL

Robin Saville: The Deepdale Halophyte Economy

The Berlin-based duo It's A Musical has made another magic world you can enter like a playhouse. Following their two full length albums "The Music Makes Me Sick" and "For Years And Years", this March Morr Music will release their EP "Summer Break". 
Emphasis is on the word "break", for the summer is cold and dark and the playhouse is a strange one, colored by cool synthesizer sounds and dark moments where the drums punctuate the inseparable voices of Robert Kretzschmar and Ella Blixt. 
The lyrics tell the story of love on the break with a strange lightness and speed that is almost acrobatic. The cover image of a melted popsicle sums it up: this is pop, but melted. 
This conceptional approach is full of wit, energetic playfulness, and funny dance moves. Everything is and isn't what it is. The summer, the break, the popsicle, the love, and the musical. This band is smart and has big plans. 
After many touring adventures opening up for The Whitest Boy Alive and a two week tour in Japan in 2012, It's A Musical is about to embark on a month long tour with the cult band Tocotronic. Watch out for these little people get big.

It´s A Musical: Mood Swings

Telekinesis is both a band and a person. It’s taken Michael Benjamin Lerner, now a wizened, grizzled 26-year-old, four years to come to terms with this and understand what responsibilities it does and does not entail, although one would not, from listening to its/his previous two albums, 2009’s self-titled debut and 2011’s 12 Desperate Straight Lines, detect any hint of confusion or self-doubt, aside from the songs that were directly about confusion or self-doubt. His third album, Dormarion, is, then, in ways both practical and profound, the sound of a man figuring out exactly who he is. Also, it’s a total fucking hoot.
Lerner wrote the 12 songs that comprise Dormarion in early 2012—half at his home in West Seattle and half at his family’s house in the San Juan Islands—with the original intention of recording the album completely on his own. Instead, he road-tripped over the summer and made the record in two weeks with Spoon drummer Jim Eno in his Austin, TX studio, Public Hi-Fi. On Dormarion Lane, to be specific. “It’s a beautiful-sounding word, and if you Google it, nothing but this one tiny street comes up,” says Lerner, although this is obviously about to change. “No origin, no description. I can’t tell you what the word means. It’s like something from Lost.”
So there’s two drummers, and no one else, collaborating shoulder-to-shoulder on a musically adventurous album containing two centerpiece songs on which there are no drums whatsoever. The breakthrough, musically and otherwise, came with the eighth song written for the record, “Ghosts and Creatures,” a keyboard-driven, spacey, and darn near Goth turn that marks a conscious departure from his guitar-bass-drums power-pop racket. “That was the most unlike-me song I’d ever written.”
When you see Telekinesis perform this year, Lerner will be backed by Erik Walters of The Globes on guitar, Say Hi’s Eric Elbogen on bass, and Rebecca Cole of Wild Flag and The Minders on keyboards.

Telekinesis: Ghosts And Creatures

Reissue of the first ISAN album (originally released on Tugboat/RTD in 1998) as a limited Record Store Day first time ever vinyl release! Including previously unreleased bonus tracks. Re-mastered and cut by Dubplates & Mastering.
One explanation for the 90s-fascination with Casio, Korg and other analogue synthesizers is quickly at hand: The 1st video-game generation was coming of age and were happy to hear that their dearly loved “Space Invaders“-soundtrack was suddenly popping up in electronic music. It takes slightly longer to explain why one record from that time - “Beautronics“, the debut by UK-synth-duo ISAN first released in 1998 - kept its appeal until today.
“Beautronics“ does not grab you immediately. You don’t hum these tunes after a few listens, in fact you might not even hum them after dozens of spins. It’s not about humming. It’s about soft cushions and a cosy duvet made of sounds, it’s about aural sheets floating around like warm humidity during a hot bath. Occasionally it’s even about IDM, but in a very late-night kind of way.
Antony Ryan and Robin Saville, the two English lads behind ISAN, are very open about their goals. They separate the longer tracks with short, often abstract pieces they called “Tints“. So it’s as much about tonal colour, as it is about melodies. The “Tints“ form an interesting contrast between ambient sounds and the more focused tunes. But even their most bass-dominated songs such as “Skeek“ are not exactly four to the floor. There’s no more than one to the floor, while the rest is sailing somewhere above in a haze of beautiful sounds and melodies. The album’s sleeve and title are straightforward about this: it’s all about the human beauty in electronica.
Just like your mom’s heartbeat that set the tone for the first nine months of your life, “Beautronics“ produces sounds that radiate a warmth and naturalness that make them feel familiar upon first listen. The 15 years since its initial release don’t change a thing about this. That’s why it’s certain, that “Beautronics“ will win a new generation of listeners with this re-issue.

ISAN - Xylomat

Fortunately, three guys hailing from New Weird Bavaria are on a musical mission to fight the ever-advancing forces of entropy and monotony: Calling themselves Aloa Input for a reason – it’s also the band’s collective motto –, Cico Beck (aka Joasihno), Marcus Grassl (formerly part of Missent To Denmark) and Florian Kreier (aka Angela Aux) obviously love all kinds of input; the further apart the sources and inspirations, the better. Always on point when it comes to picking the best bits and pieces of so much input, Anysome, the band’s debut full-length, essentially resembles a huge map that covers most of the musical worlds and sonic landscapes we know. Make no mistake: Borges might claim a map of that size is useless, it’s nevertheless a hell of a ride.
Drawing from a long list of influences all three members agree upon (e.g. Animal Collective, Eno, Beck, Beatles, Morricone, Why?, Can, The Notwist), Aloa Input are well aware of the album’s world-spanning approach, mentioning “guitars from Cape Town to Portland, beats from Berlin to Chicago, and vocals from NYC to Düsseldorf”. And yet there’s more to Anysome: the exotic detours, the band’s willingness to experiment and to go that extra mile for a good hook, the hypnotic singing and electrified horizons, all neatly placed on top of minimalist basslines. Another important skill mastered by Aloa Input: Though certainly not content with doing just one thing, the resulting itinerary never resembles a zigzag line.
With the album’s “Prelude” we enter a world that in fact seems to be coming at us, rolling up like the flickering images of a Laterna Magica: mellow birdsong, paired with hazy strawberry field sounds, at least for now, and we’re already pushed on into “Another Green World”, a place that’s pure exuberance and bliss. That second track alone, stomping ahead, makes it blatantly clear that Aloa Input love to run riot with styles and approaches, and yet they never leave the rails: Diversity or switching gears, for them, is never an invitation to let chaos reign supreme – instead it’s just more fuel for a mind-blowing ride. Some of the stops: world pop in search of greater truths (“Prblms”), burning bushes (and Kraut references) in Africa (“Rubbish”), a mirage reminiscent of cLOUDDEAD (“Clouds So Far”), all kinds of euphoric choruses with melancholy hatches underneath, plus the recurring sense that people get older, we all do, yet the ride can be fun, especially when it has a new soundtrack every four minutes, so it’s all good as long as there’s enough input to have fun with.
The “final trilogy” – that’s how the band refers to the last three tracks –, is basically a prolonged good-bye: “Going Home” (getting up, only to sit down again), “Someday Morning” (spelled “radio-friendly” backwards), and “Zweiklang”, somewhat longer, because it’s just too early to stop. Unpacking and looking back, we realize: Anysome is all over the place.

Cat.no.: MORR125
Format: CD/LP

Release Dates:
Oct 18, 2013 (Worldwide)
Nov 05, 2013 (US) 

Aloa Input : Going Home

Morr Music merges electronic and indie musical disciplines that many consider the label to have invented its own genre. It's roster is certainly a testament to this fact - the likes of Lali Puna, Múm, Isan, Seabear, Sin Fang, Sóley, It´s A Musical, Masha Qrella, Tarwater, Fm Belfast, Pascal Pinon, Butcher The Bar, Telekinesis, Opiate, Ms. John Soda, Tied & Tickled Trio, Electric President, Radical Face, The Go Find, and B.Fleischmann making for an impeccable roster. With more than 100 Albums in its catalogue, Morr Music is a label that truly has something for everyone. 


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