New second album out July 2022! THE OUTCASTS (Cine 25)

Morlock’s ‘The Outcasts’, the sophomore album of cosmic explorations by synthesist and drummer Andrew Prestidge (Zoltan, Warning, The Osiris Club), is a deceptively accessible fusion of post-punk, electro-pop, Moog drones and Italian prog soundtracks. Blending melody and experimentation into a shifting patchwork of retro-futuristic splendour, these seemingly contradictory elements battle it out in a dream landscape of the ancient and the alien.

The influences on the record are vast and varied. As a long-time fan of electronic music, Andrew’s compositions can invoke anyone from Tubeway Army, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop or John Carpenter to more abrasive acts such as Killing Joke, The Chameleons or Cardiacs. And that’s before we get to Queen’s soundtrack to Flash Gordon…

In contrast to 2019’s debut Morlock release, ‘Ancient Paths’, rhythm and riffage is to the fore throughout the course of these seven epic tunes. Much more a widescreen version of the band and a collaborative affair, the recording took place in London’s celebrated Holy Mountain studios in the spring of 2021. Mixed in Switzerland by Misha Hering (Memnon SA), who also co-writes and adds synthesizers to a number of tracks, the production veers between the pastoral and the urban, from the roots of the Earth to the measureless depths of outer space.

The ‘Outcasts’ concept began with Andrew developing creature designs for an imaginary graphic novel. The eventual Lovecraft-inspired illustrations are accompanied by a conceptual story-cycle originating from the mind of science fiction author Matt Thompson, all produced in a lavish and limited vinyl edition. A heavyweight pressing with grooves deep enough – just – to do the music full justice, ‘The Outcasts’ is truly an object to savour.

Watch out for forthcoming live action with a specially-expanded line-up!

First album ANCIENT PATHS (Cine 22)

Prog doom drummer du jour Andrew Prestidge branches out into the field of electronic music with his solo synthesizer project MORLOCK! After several years spent holding down the drum stool with legendary doom metal acts Angel Witch, Electric Wizard and Warning – not to mention the prog rock bands Zoltan, The Osiris Club and Suns Of The Tundra – Andrew sat down with his keyboard collection, a 4-track recorder and a selection of sonic screwdrivers to create a new kind of music. The space-rock jams contained on ‘Ancient Paths’ are influenced as much by retro synth artists Kraftwerk, Heldon, Tubeway Army and OMD as they are by the sci-fi soundtracks of John Carpenter and the folk-horror that seeps into every corner of the  British Isles. Andrew’s previous experience in live-soundtracking silent films (performing at Stewart Lee’s ATP Festival with Suns Of The Tundra to a 1919 film detailing Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica) and reworking vintage horror scores with Zoltan guide the expansive, all-instrumental melancholy of the record. Acousticguitars, analog synthesizers and electronic percussion coalesce into a retro-futurist soundscape for the mind’s eye. Many of the songtitles reference occult literature and cinema: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (‘Rotwang’s Furnace’), Phantasm (‘Morningside’), H.P. Lovecraft’s Colour Out Of Space (‘Blasted Heath’), the comics of Jack Kirby (‘Kirby Oberon’). The band name itself is a nod to H.G. Well’s classic 1895 novel ‘The Time Machine’. The Wind in the Willows recast for the 22nd century? Quatermass and the Pit relocated to Summerisle? The music of Morlock bridges the past and the future, re-imagining both into a blend of electronic perfection.