MOREL
Around Washington D.C., the acrid buzz of hardcore
still hangs heavy in the breeze and its grit caked between sidewalk cracks, but
since the noisy heyday of Minor Threat and Fugazi, D.C. has had to make room for
a few new sounds: R&B, soul, garage rock-- even Richard Morel's eclectic
vision of electro-rock as heard on his second album for Yoshitoshi Records, LUCKY
STRIKE.
"The scene's changing," says Richard Morel,
longtime D.C. resident and leader of the cities favorite electro-rock pioneers, MOREL.
"Punk isn't quite as dominating as it was in the past. We're at an amazing
window of time, and because our band is a hybrid, people treat us well."
And why shouldn't they. As a high-profile fixture of the local electronica underworld, Morel has collaborated with Deep Dish and remixed Depeche Mode, New Order and The Pretenders. His work with Deep Dish has included mixing and engineering credits to their Grammy Award-winning remix of Dido’s “Thank You”, co-writing and singing and performing on their debut critically acclaimed album Junk Science as well as singing and co-writing three new songs for their upcoming release due out later this year.
"Sometimes I think indie rock heads get us more than house heads," says Morel. "That's why I make my 12-inch mixes more club-oriented. It's a bit of a sore spot, but I guess it's a blessing to have such a problem."
On the band's new album Lucky Strike, Morel once again pushes the limits of just what electro-pop can be. Taking the best elements of both, he conjures up seductive lounge exhales and breakneck kick drum chases that never isolate the heads’ need to bang or the asses longing to shake. Lucky Strike is at once a continuation of the 2002 debut Queen of the Highway (which spawned the three hit club singles “Cabaret,” “True” and “Funny Car”) as a dramatic leap forward for his unique style of progressive house music. Morel it's his band--guitarist John Allen, drummer Rob Black, bassist Pat Flood and percussionist/vocalist Dwayne Tyree--and their road-worn style that deserves a lot of the credit.
A cut like "Cheerful," with its caroming bi-polar disorder, drags the listener through string interludes and sly piano breakdowns before shoving them through the final few minutes with a propulsive snare. There's even two versions of the song "I'll Do What I Can Not To Touch You"--one an almost dirge-like dirty soul song; the other a percolating dance floor lament. And for those hard-core Morel fans, the airy vocal and guitar part driven “Escape (Driving To Heaven)” his dance-floor masterpiece with 16B that originally appeared on Deep Dish’s Global Underground #021: Moscow emerges again on Lucky Strike and is also making waves in Mitsubishi’s current TV ad campaign in Europe.
More importantly--and more groundbreaking in the realm of dance music--people are actually listening to the words ducking and diving between the pounding beats. "People come up to me and say they love my lyrics," he says with a laugh, "Then they proceed to quote something that's not at all what I said, but I wish I'd had." Queen of the Highway is brain massaging electronica with songs like "Ride" and the ultra-seedy "All Of The Sweet Ones." On the title song ‘Lucky Strike,” Morel's penchant for wringing every last drop of heart and soul from each track has only sharpened.
"The themes are pretty simple," he says. "The classic pop thing: relationships breaking down or working. This time maybe it's more third person and in a story context than the last album, but still pretty dark." Surprisingly, Morel, known for the outspoken nature of his lyrics, decided to keep his fingers out of the well-tilled political soil. "Those themes are too big for a four-minute pop song," he says. "The Clash is one of my all-time favorite bands, but now it seems I prefer when music isn't so literally political."
While he's chosen to allow the politicians to run themselves into the ground, Morel is not afraid to picture himself as a revolutionary of sorts. While rock and dance have been holding hands for years, it's generally been a tentative flirtation. Morel's skill at smashing the two together in a dramatic electro-rock sandwich is a bold inspiring mix that now includes followers like indie-electronica acts The Postal Service and The Notwist.
"Time is helping me out now--I'm not alone," he says. "The coolest thing about house music in '95 was it was the only place you were hearing new stuff; rock had petered out, hip-hop was repeating, but you'd go to the club and you could hear tribal, underground house. The one thing I always thought was that this, coupled with good songwriting, would be the bomb."
www.morelworld.com
www.yoshitoshi.com
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MOREL’s Lucky Strike will
be released October 19 on Yoshitoshi Recordings.
Alexandra Greenberg/MSO
818-380-0400 x223, agreenberg@msopr.com