***Over the last ten years, Michael Morley has embraced the acoustic guitar as the means of channeling the darkest threads that have run through his work since the early 1980s. While he largely made a name for himself as a maverick of primitive electric guitar and electronics in The Dead C and Gate, Morley's love of song form has never been far from the surface. In recent years, chance discoveries of Spanish and classical guitar records languishing in the discount and free bins at junk shops in South Dunedin proved to be a revelation. These records, largely recorded in the 1950s and 60s, began to shift Morley's work and lead him to piece together a new musical language from elements completely removed from the rock and avant-garde underground from which he first emerged. Spanish, Mexican and South American composers such as De Fossa, Ponce, Lauro, Barrios, Pujol, Albéniz, Falla, and Villa-Lobos as well as more traditional classical guitar composers like Schubert, Haydn, and Scarlatti all began to etch themselves into his consciousness. Rather than emulate them, Morley "channeled the experience of listening to these strange guitar sounds" as he began to play the acoustic guitar for hours at a time every day as an almost meditative exercise and a way of discovering a new way to play. This new musical language is realized on Pushed Streets, a suite of 12 songs Morley recorded at home in Kōpūtai/Port Chalmers, New Zealand. The music is quiet, almost ephemeral. Chords and melodies are...
LP $28.25
08/16/2024