Morr Music

A map of morr music

Pop is a sound. Pop is melodies. Pop is a feeling; a tiny, excellent, gigantic feeling. A feeling which at best lasts for a long time. In this special case it lasts for six years already. Six years sound storage mediums from Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, Raumerstraße. Actually the address is not that important. What is even more important are the sounds from music playing people from Weilheim, Munich and from Vienna, from Antwerp, Oakland, and increasingly also from Berlin. Sometimes melancholy autumn-music, sometimes sunrises. There is equally contemporary chamber music and, besides, gushing moments of pop. White noise, folk songs, abstract Hip Hop, electronic listening. It is Thomas Morr who has found these sounds. He has picked them up and keeps bringing them again and again to listeners in all corners of the world. These sounds are published by his label Morr Music that gradually has become the label of reference for “Electronica”. It has been with the Powerbook becoming the new guitar and the guitar becoming the new Powerbook. When the sound reclaimed the song and electronic music made its way from the hard disc into the band context. What came of this process are marvellous halfdigital songwriter albums such as Lali Puna’s “Scary World Theory” from 2001 or Masha Qrella’s “Unsolved Remained”, as well as the Tied & Tickled Trio’s boundless jazz landscapes around the two Notwist brothers Markus und Micha Acher. Or Tarwater’s cool, slightly dark reinterpretation of the 1980s, as on their record “the needle was travelling”. Morr Music started in 1999. Or rather: It continued.

As Thomas Morr linked his label to different traditions of popular (and not that popular) music: He took up the narrative of the self-administrative do-it-yourself-story, a minor economy whose reserve currencies are friendship and enthusiasm. He further took up a very British narrative of a pop wonderland full of strong and emphatic feelings. It is not without reason that a poster of Morrissey hangs above the jukebox in Morr’s office: The label’s first compilation from 2000 was called “Putting The Morr Back Into Morrissey”. And the second, two years later, called “Blue Skied An’ Clear” was a homage to the British shoegazers of Slowdive whose floating clear guitar pop has been something like a blueprint for lots of electronicaartists.

It is further this kind of indie socialization that most of the Morr artists share. Morr Music achieves a great deal of convincing by means of sounds. Morr Music releases affairs of the heart. If one liked to follow Morr Music’s ways with a finger on a map of the world, specific routes would be determined soon. Well build but not at all well-trodden is the path to Munich/Weilheim where Lali Puna, M.S. John Soda und the Tied & Tickled Trio would await the imaginary Morr-Liner. Another route would lead to Belgium to The Go Find and to Styrofoam. In Vienna one would meet Bernhard Fleischmann and his Duo505. Further paths would lead to Oakland/California (man’s bestfriend) and London/UK (isan), Copenhagen
(Thomas Knak aka opiate), to Italy (populous), to New York and Seattle (Andrew Kenny and Benjamin Gibbard), or up north to Iceland (múm).

This is made possible by means of a permanent linking up to local scenes. The latter working equally each one on one’s own and similarly together, being busy on a global idea. Despite of occurring difference in sound they share an attitude that characterizes a distrust of all too sugary promises of the pop economy. In other words: Morr Music does not look for the next big thing. Morr Music rather prefers finding splendid songs. These songs are wrapped in the covers and booklets of the graphic artist Jan Kruse, a friend of Thomas Morr from childhood on. Jan Kruse is someone who brilliantly understands to visualize the Morr-Feeling, sometimes in clear graphic rhythms, sometimes with endearing characters, a melancholic squirrel or a so called “hairy scary monster” with headphones. Moreover he designs maps of the Morr Music world. The one who follows them, can lose her-/himself.
A rewarding undertaking.