Words by Justin Turford
As 2023 draws to its cold end, we have a listen to a summer release from the Italian artist MORRR (aka Dario Gatto), ‘Marrow Weavers’ poetic post-rock charms and sorrowful subject matter perhaps more appropriate for these lightless days and long nights of December.
One can only assume 2016 was a painful time for Dario as this was the year when the early sketches of these songs were outlined. Those universal experiences of heartbreak, love and despair laid bare on paper and tape - does one keep them for further reminders or sweep them away?
Luckily for us, he decided to hold onto and flesh out his initial ideas into these sonically dense vignettes of beautiful sadness, MORRR’s entrancingly personal vocals and treated guitar harmonics a surprisingly positive experience considering the substance of the songs.
From his teens onwards, Dario has explored a myriad of genres, from black metal to ambient and psychedelia, later forming a post-rock outfit called Ein Sof with his brother in 2015. He also studied contemporary composition, electroacoustic and acousmatic music, extended techniques, counterpoint and orchestration in Milan, and we can hear whispers of all of these investigations in this EP.
The opening track ‘Riptide’ is a beautifully arranged and performed piece of psychedelic drone-rock. No drums, just layers of treated guitars and Dario’s close-miked voice, the lyrics barely discernible but heartfelt, the melodies rich and evocative even when drenched in electric noise and distortion. There’s more than a hint of the narcotic haze of Spaceman 3 or Spiritualized about this recording but rawer in emotion.
A fuller band sound appears on ‘Waking Up’ with live-sounding drum loops, backward masked vocals and a lavishly orchestrated combination of multiple guitars, harp sounds and creamy effects. Short, strange and yet, poppy in its own way. It is a lovely moment.
The widescreen mini-drama of ‘These Wide Eyes’ is quite a trip. Ambient chordal textures that are both unsettling and weirdly comforting increase in intensity as the song moves along, Dario’s vocal appearing more as a declaration than as a sung performance. After the atmospheric blues of the introduction, a lovely harp-ish guitar line lifts the track into outer/inner space, with wild effects flashing hallucinatory harmonics, nearly overwhelming the listener before the gentle drone returns…to end.
Appearing twice on the EP, in its original form, ‘Tantalo’ aches with discordant emotion, its hypnotic and mournful guitar and piano hook abstracted by a nightmarish hum that is eventually joined by more sympathetic pads. Heavy with grief but beautiful in its atmosphere, the remix by MFZ Records co-founder Francesco Fusaro, aka Froz (who also made the video for ‘Riptide’) retains the original’s feel but takes scissors to its form, cutting the song into moments of repetition, Dario’s emotional whispers are reshaped into waves with doubled up snatches and a disjointed lo-fi drum groove that rattles and bumps.
‘Marrow Weavers’ is a short but highly emotive journey made of raw bones, the visceral noise energy never submerging the starkness of the melodies: melodies that evoke pain and possibilities. A sharp line to straddle but achieved beautifully. 9/10.
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