Mordecai

Mordecai

Abstract Recipe

Richie Records

Fourth full-length (the 3rd issued by Richie Records//TestosterTunes) from Mordecai of the great upper plains. It’s a no-frills rock (punk? garage? post-punk? indie rock? blech. it’s rock) album that oughta perk up the ears of those interested in things like thwarted freedom, advanced mathematics, the Blue Mask, bum notes, and staring at the wall. Though the band grows increasingly competent and confident with each release, these precocious MFers possess a flippant world-weariness typically reserved for no-accounts and has-beens at the beginning of their third marriage.  Recall, if you can, the moment when you recognized life for what it is: a low-key drag, but one interesting enough to wake up for each morning. Mordecai huddled up in Montana with an electric guitar & some drums & a bass and they put that moment on a record and it’s called Abstract Recipe.

Mordecai

Neil’s Generator

Richie Records

Why does everybody make such a big to-do about Mordecai’s Montana origins? Hell, it’s a place just like any other, just bigger than most. And it’s not like the (true) story of them recording in a YMCA bathroom really offers a proper “big sky” vibe, although it certainly had a more unique aroma than most studios. But on Neil’s Generator, things really do open up in a way where the juxtaposition between huge space / not so huge amount of people really makes sense. If the previous LP College Rock formed a friendly union between noisy Swell Maps-ian clatter, post-garage Fall prickliness, and the all-American DIY basement joy of Mike Rep / Tommy Jay, Neil’s Generator embodies the same kind of loose, ragged glory perpetrated by the Meat Puppets, Rayne, Dead Moon, and the Velvets staring into a cracked and filthy mirror. The guitars—and make no mistake, this is a guitar record, and a damn fine one indeed!—retain a spiky waywardness, like if Robert Quine had recorded a Rough Trade single. But these songs have more space to breathe, and therefore function as a launching pad for some gleeful six-string abandon. Who knows how many rodeos the Bodish brothers have witnessed, but for sure they understand the risky notion that sometimes you’re in control of a guitar, other times the guitar can get the best of you. If they’re not afraid to take the chance, you shouldn’t be either—so hop on board.

Mordecai

College Rock

Richie Records

College Rock is the rabidly anticipated new full-length from Mordecai, the most charismatically tuneful knuckle-draggers in Missoula; quite possibly in all of Montana.    The album cruises and plods across twelve tunes that recall the rougher trades coming out of the UK, the early squall of Cleveland’s proto-punk merchants and the reckless abandon of Will Shatter and crew. This rock trio lacks pretense; their power comes from the electric joy of plugging in and turning up.    Geographic isolation works in their favor, as guys of Mordecai’s talent and vision would surely have been chewed up and spit out long ago by a more populous metropolis. Instead, College Rock proves that at least a few residents of Silver Bow County can teach a lesson in urban detachment.