Colin J Morris – Petrichor

Former Sunbear & Ruby Tailights member Colin J Morris released Petrichor, his first EP of “ambient experimental drone electronica guitar” music, at midnight last night.  Download now for whatever you’d like to pay.

Now, “ambient experimental drone electronica guitar” is what the Bandcamp tags say and, granted, I don’t know a whole lot about “ambient experimental drone electronica guitar” music, but if you ask me it sounds more like the score to that independent Australian movie you saw a clip of on the South Bank Show that one time and you always meant to get out from Laser, but never did, than “ambient experimental drone electronica guitar” music.

That’s a good thing.

Imagine a tryst between Brian Eno, Olafur Arnalds and a classic Moog synth in a Berlin back alley circa 1982. Ambient? Check. Haunting? Certainly. Interesting? You betcha.

Petrichor, the debut EP from Colin J. Morris, is all of these things, and more. This 26 minute, instrumental 4-track EP is, like all Morris’ work, music for thinking to, walking to, basking in and maybe getting a little lost in (in a nice faffing-around-on-a-Sundayafternoon kind of way, mind you).

The EP’s title, Petrichor, refers to the scent of rain on dry earth, as Colin explains: “I’ve always been fascinated by music evoking smell, instead of the other way around (I’ll get there someday!).”

The four tracks combine a variety of influences and moods, from the austere perfection of ‘Leningrad’ to the earthy, elegiac ‘Sylvan’, the luminous, carefully constructed cacophony of the epic ‘Radium Dials’ (think Beethoven with an iBook) to the innocence and wonder of ‘Carbon’.

The stunning artwork for Petrichor comes from illustrator Morgan Acker and was all hand-drawn with water colours, graphite and ink. Morgan also created the forthcoming video for Carbon which will be seen on a social network near you very soon.

Colin J Morris is a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Colin produces all of the bands featured on RTE2 television’s award-winning When Under Ether music series. Past acts include Villagers, James Vincent McMorrow, And So I Watch You From Afar and Gomez.

Colin’s day job is writing music for film, TV and theatre with fellow composer, singer Miriam Ingram, under the name Tootsweet. Together they scored the IFTA shortlisted film, Eamon, which was also part of the official selection at the Toronto Film Festival. They’ve also written scores for a host of TV and theatre productions, including award-winning theatre director Bisi Adigun’s production of the Ghanaian play Through A Film Darkly.

Back in the ’90s when he wasn’t long out of short pants, Colin was an integral part of critically acclaimed shoegazers Sunbear. The intervening years have seen him play guitar, bass, synth and piano for a veritable who’s who of Irish alternative music, including The Ruby Tailights, Carol Keogh (The Plague Monkeys, The Tycho Brahe, Autamata), Ann Scott, and Nina Hynes. He’s also produced remixes for Strands (Steve Shannon’s solo moniker), Ann Scott and A Lazarus Soul.

Here’s a Soundcloud stream for your ears.

Petrichor by colin.j.morris

http://www.colinjmorris.com

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