Michael Morley – Pushed Streets (2024) [FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

Michael Morley – Pushed Streets (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 36:03 minutes | 350 MB | Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Psychedelic Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Black Editions

As one third of the Dead C and with his long-running solo project Gate, Dunedin, New Zealand’s Michael Morley has reached international audiences by exploring a harsh and challenging palette in open-ended structures, with slight traces of song peaking through the mayhem. While Pushed Streets abandons trademark harsh textures for acoustic guitar, hushed vocals, and minimal percussion, it retains the opaque qualities of the Dead C’s compositional style. Left bare without walls of distorted guitar or visceral drumming, Morley’s unique creative voice becomes more perceptible. The subtle trail created by traces of form and structure emerges without a surrounding haze, but still provides few clues of Morley’s process or intention.By their landmark 1992 double album Harsh 70s Reality, the Dead C had developed an expansive vision where the abstract side-long instrumental “Driver U.F.O.” coexists with the more conventional “Sky.” These elements grew increasingly intertwined within single songs, such as “Your Hand” from 1995’s The White House. Vocal lines still imply structure, but with long lines and little rhythmic pattern. Guitar chord changes do not happen in any tidy progression. While “Sky” had only felt conventional when viewed in the context of the group’s more-experimental pieces, they never returned to even this level of convention.

The tracks on Pushed Streets dance around and playfully explore the perimeters of song structure without ever engaging with any traditional core qualities. He still uses guitars, but the acoustic guitars usually play simple melodic lines. These lines can repeat, usually with slight variations, and never in the countable groups that define structure for folk or pop songs. Free, abstract guitar lines interrupt any sense of repetition. On “Sunrise” and “Alms,” Morley turns to the strummed chords that the Dead C sometimes used in their compositions.

The vocals, even at a volume just above a whisper, will be easily recognizable to fans. Instead of the heavy drumming of the Dead C or the electronic percussion of Gate, only tambourines and shakers add percussive sounds, and these synchronize very loosely with the guitars. Although Morley moving away from his well-established visceral range encourages the exploration of his compositional ideas, they remain blurry and hazy even when they move to the foreground. – Steve Silverstein

Tracklist:

1-01. Michael Morley – Pushed (02:32)
1-02. Michael Morley – Streets (02:17)
1-03. Michael Morley – Breathe (02:46)
1-04. Michael Morley – Ribbons (02:08)
1-05. Michael Morley – Sunrise (02:37)
1-06. Michael Morley – Dances (01:36)
1-07. Michael Morley – The Road (02:42)
1-08. Michael Morley – Alms (04:00)
1-09. Michael Morley – Straits (02:20)
1-10. Michael Morley – Winds Blow (07:16)
1-11. Michael Morley – Spells (02:57)
1-12. Michael Morley – The Eternal City (02:52)

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