Morsure — Les Matins Rouges

Here’s a tape from the dependable Ciel Bleu Et Petits Oiseaux Records, packaged in an old school homemade inlay; Morsure, it turns out, is a pseudonym (another pseudonym) for Julien Skrobek, a HNW legend that I’ll presume you have the good taste to know about. Here he gives us four tracks, each amounting to a quarter of a C90, and each a great example of why he is held in high regard. The tape is limited to 12 copies and is still available from the Ciel Bleu site.

The first piece, titled ‘I’, stumbles along on a bed of hesitant crackle, sounding like mid-frequency, chunky raindrops. It moves along at a fair pace, with a scratchiness that isn’t aggressive or abrasive, but instead is perceived - by me, at least - as organic. The wall is dominated by those mid frequencies, but there’s an effective trebly fizz lurking in the background, as well as imposing bass elements, which ape and emphasise the rain-like textures. ‘I’ segues seamlessly into ‘II” (yes, you can predict the remaining titles), and into a very different world. Here, the bass is overwhelming, a speeding, rumbling drone that leaps from the speakers; the drone is more precisely comprised of lower mid frequency noise textures that are dragged along furiously by a thundering low end juggernaut that shifts slightly - it’s akin to being trapped in an apocalyptic storm. At the very peripheries of the track, and hearing, are subtle, delicate, shifting treble hisses, modulating and undulating; they sound deliberately digital and clean, juxtaposed against the juddering bass trundle. It’s unclear whether this is an aural hallucination on my part, though.

Flipping the tape over for ‘III’, we find a return to mid-frequency textures, though here the atmosphere is more murky and dark than on ‘I’. The wall is hard, and offers little space; there’s often a sense that the lower-frequency textures are trying to burst through, causing ruptures in the more trebly elements. The bass layers jolt and twist, cutting against the more constant pace of the other layers - it’s an impressively deep track. ‘IV’, the final track, is also deep, but in a very different way; here, again, Morsure turns to speeding bass tones as the centrepiece of the wall. Like ‘II’ the lower frequencies dominate brutally, but here they overload entirely, leading to sonic artefacts shearing loose from the rumble. It’s mercilessly hard, trundling along at pace, and sparking judders in the mid-frequency layers. The silence when the track finishes is truly deafening.

I used to listen to a lot of HNW, but I must admit it’s been a while. So this tape from Morsure has been a timely reminder of past pleasures. You know that if Skrobek is involved in a release it will be good, and here he does not disappoint. Whilst I’m drawn to the more restrained textures of the first piece, the two bass-led tracks are impressive through their sheer bludgeoning power. A very recommended tape, and as I said, still available from Ciel Bleu Et Petits Oiseaux Records.