Morphosa Harmonia

Description

Limited Edition LP in a box with art-prints & booklet.

The announcement of the relaunch of the German label Hit Thing (based out of Hamburg) comes with some anticipation regarding some of the rare titles they released from 2000-2007. At the starting gate is MORPHOSA HARMONIA, the duet album between Thomas Wydler, longtime drummer-alumni of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Die Haut, and Toby Dammit, also known as Larry Mullins, who has since joined the Bad Seeds as well. MORPHOSA HARMONIA was originally released in 2004 on CD only.

A vinyl release was planned, but the label closed doors, thus the album retreated into the shadow unknown to many. MORPHOSA HARMONIA has a two-sided structure in almost every aspect of the project. The 11-song set was culled from a large body of musical sketches by Thomas Wydler in progress in the early 2000's. Wydler gathered an amazing cast of musicians, including Kristof Hahn (SWANS, Les Hommes Sauvages), Jochen Arbeit (Einsturzende Neubauten, Die Haut, Automat), Yoyo Rahm (SWANS), Beate Bartel (Liaisons Dangereuses, Mania D, Matador) and Martin Peter (Die Haut).
All the music was recorded in Berlin. Thomas Wydler and Toby Dammit, longtime close friends searching for a project together, combined their tastes, talent and humor on these 11 sketches. In 2002 Dammit arrived in Berlin somewhat empty handed and dazed at what to contribute, as Wydler had already designed much of the drumming and percussion landscapes. With considerable thought a radical chance had to be taken. Armed with a rare Buchla synthesizer, a vocal microphone and tape echo, Dammit asked Wydler to give him a chance to explore some strange ideas.

Recording engineer Ingo Krauss kept the creative waters flowing without question and what resulted surprised them all. Large phonetic vocal choirs were built, sometimes beautiful, mysterious or a horrific nightmare. Each piece gained unique characters and themes. Thus a strange and visual musical world slowly appeared before them; the cinema of MORPHOSA HARMONIA. Later that week Wydler and Dammit attended a dinner at the home of German artist Martin Eder. As they explained their strange new project, Eder expressed interest in contributing the artwork.

At that time Eder had completed a parallel series of beautiful watercolor portraits of both cats and women. Combining both side by side displayed varieties of a possible morphosis from feline to feminine, (or vice versa) and a mysterious yet complimentary layer came to their musical characters. It appeared to complete the cinematic world they had designed; thus a true harmonic morphosis exposed, balanced in music and painting, the strange characters of MORPHOSA HARMONIA.

"Yourre driving the cliffhanger road in an old Ferrari, sweating, there's a kilogram in the rear seat; you're handsome but past it, hair is thinning, phone is buzzing, and you just need to make it to your girlfriends place, one more time. Morphosa Harmonia is your life story" - IGGY POP