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Morphem - Out Of Focus


Guest Benoit Dourlent

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Guest Benoit Dourlent

Morphem - Out Of Focus

 

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Artist: Morphem

Title: Out Of Focus

Label: Tunnel

Date: 1997

 

Track listing:

 

01. Montage

02. Nothing Left

03. My Plan

04. Love Is An Ocean

05. Something Liquid

06. Magma

07. How Can U Be So Sure

08. Brigers Of The Dawn

09. Closed Sector

 

Review:

 

In x dream style, x dream building and trance music concept, this cd is also

very close to mos bug spirit. A strong german sound, but more polished and not

so harsh, rather melodic and very moody, but slight variations around one them

or more. It has the complexity of a rich album, but always sounds clear,

clean.

Track 1 :

montage is a sympathic rythmic melody but fast and full of effects. The album

begins with a positive fast track.

Track 2 :

nothing left increases in scope, featuring large intro and a clever melody.

Intro could also be considered as a melody too !

Track 3 :

Soft bass this is a round smooth fast tempo, clever variations all sounds seem

bubbles smashing in the air this is also smiling music, never negative, always

positive vibes. hard bass, 3d voicing, features flutes and slow tempo, strong

contrast. this sound brave and strong, but still full of smooth beeps. quite

large use of TB Roland synthe.

Track 4 :

Once again beats are large bubbles spreading all over this dreaming track (and

very few of them are inverted), and theme comes immediately. Progressive

during 9 minutes, a certain rock guitar add-on, rather slow.

Track 5 :

Something liquid has both very fast effects and large layers and re includes

"montage" rythmic. As usual polyphony includes 4 or 5 different rounds at the

same time and the artists enjoys play and change them.

Track 6 :

Magma is perhaps the most abstract track. Some moments are purely psychedelic,

as they have no concrete explanation. After 5'30 during 15-20 sec, bass lost

their beats and change rythm, this creates something faltering.

Track 7 :

this time again chord te transportent nevertheless this is "never surrender"

album, defy fate without dark illusions, but a positive way. One could see

sadness or regret in the chord melody. But raw energy !

Track 8 :

Brigers of the dawn is bubbling quite regular track and is close to tracks from

the beginning of the album, with progressive and regular sounds but it becomes

also elaborate when reaching the end.

You have so many sounds in your ears...At 5'10 silence calls a new development

which is a little bit more shape than the beginning of the track. Conclusion

is a little too classic and rather weak, but it immediately calls the last

track "closed sector".

Track 9 :

is nearly religious spirit, super short 1'30 track long, and the album vanished

in a last lightning warning.

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  • 6 months later...
  • 4 months later...
Guest Louhnatique

this album has many many faces.. dark, deep, spacy, floaty, hard, melodic, it

has it all.. i love 2 chill on love is an ocean, it's so good!! brigers of the

dawn is one of my favourites too, it's plain, simple, hard and dark.. good

dancefloor track! the whole album is balanced, actually there r only good

tracks on it, i love it!! best tracks: 2 4 and 8.. 8,5/10

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  • 10 months later...

Morphem - Out of Focus is a classical GOA album. But it is not full-on midnight

GOA, but soft & moody trance, with lots of pleasant melodies that make our

immagination work to achive closer connection with our psychedelic

surrounding. Quality sound for the time when it was published.

Most trax have good bass lines, a lot of psysounds, proper usage of TB 303 and

ofcourse magical melodies, which can be rather flutes, guitars or thast

synthetic.

Brigers Of The Dawn is think is quite out of focus of this album. This is slow

psychedelic track, that suits as background for deep space expeditions.

Closed Sector is written in Jean Michel Jarre style and is very short (1:33).

Love Is An Ocean is the most interesting and impresionable track on the album.

Luquid bassline and acid riffs are mixed up with beatifull guitar melodies and

trip-hopping precursions.

That is all. Listen to this album in mood.

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  • 4 years later...

An underated release for sure. I would describe Morphem's sound on this CD to be very similar to X-Dream's work of the time. This isn't very surprising seeing how its a Tunnel release and that X-Dream are thanked twice in the insert (Jan also was the one who did the cover artwork for this album). The album is pretty varied from faster, upbeat stuff and there is a few downtempo moments here as well. I haven't heard Morphem's second CD so I can't tell what direction he took... But this CD should appeal to all X-Dream fans at least

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  • 7 years later...

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Artist: Morphem

Title: Out of Focus

Label: Tunnel Records

Date: 1996

 

01. Montage
02. Nothing Left
03. My Plan
04. Love Is An Ocean
05. Something Liquid
06. Magma
07. How Can U Be So Sure
08. Brigers Of The Dawn
09. Closed Sector

 

"My plan is to stay here until I die."

 

Where are you, DMV?

 

I don't think this album is underrated, but rather sits where it should in the greats of goa conversation. First off it is crystal clear with different moods. Dark, floaty, powerful...it has all of that. It's a good album with a couple very strong tracks that range from blasters to downtempo moody goa. Sometimes however I believe it to be a little sparse in places, requiring a little more depth. It's close to being great, but just needing to take that next step. While not IFO or Live in Athens 1996 it's still good in its own right.

 

Mdk

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  • 2 years later...

This album was absolutely flying under the radar for me. I've heard many of these tracks in dj sets but never the whole album. Very well produced atmospheric, storytelling melodic goa. The whole album is interesting from beginning to the end. The only track I couldn't really appreciate was Bringers Of The Dawn.

 

Magma, My Plan, Nothing Left and Montage are classics that I've heard many times before hearing this album.

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What I appreciate about this album is the way it combines the atmosphere of old techno with the drive of goa trance. It's definitely melodic goa, but the techno influence gives it a little more emotional depth.

 

The only major flaw here is that, like TIP's Feeling Weird, it has some unnecessary editing. The short version of How Can You Be So Sure isn't bad, but less entrancing than the fabulous 12'' original. Worse by far is that Closed Sector, so great as a full track, is reduced to a mere ninety second outro.

 

Give me a re-release with the full versions of all tracks, and you'd have a damn near perfect album. This has become a hard to find album, so maybe one day that dream will come true.

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  • 11 months later...

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