The L.A.-based producer unveils his most personal — and challenging — work yet.
Earlier this month, P. Morris announced POP.MORRIS, a two-volume project that fuses together original productions, edits and more as he connects the dots between influences new (Beyoncé, Young Thug, Mila J) and old (SOS Band, Isley Brothers, Whitney Houston).
Like his FACT mix, it’s a syrupy mix of rap and R&B — albeit one where everything has been chopped, screwed, melted and otherwise distorted. Morris points to a quote by Brian Eno from A Year With Swollen Appendices that inspired his approach on the project:
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.”
“It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”
“I had a rough idea to put together a long-playing experience to illuminate my influences, but later became obsessed with the idea of manipulating digital artifacts to create a “future grain” – an ugly form of distortion similar to what Eno is referencing,” Morris explains. “I think this might, for some, be my most challenging work… It’s definitely the most personal, as I try to weave threads between the tracks.”
Stream both volumes of POP.MORRIS below and download each via Bandcamp; it’s also available on CD. Plus, watch a video for an excerpt of Volume 1 (directed by Maal A Goomba and Princess Goomba) that toys with the project’s mashed-up, digital distortion.
