Mordant Music - ModernismuseuM

Has it really been ten years since this label began emitting it's bountiful morsels of deviant electronica? Who ever would have thought it would pass so quickly. Moreover, who could have imagined that this subversive outlet of chattering gears would be bookending it's first decade in such a dynamic manner. If you don't know this UK well-spring of delightfully arcane obscurities, this is your big chance to get over two hours of methodically disturbing tunes from the musty valve of Baron Mordant's archives. The unreleased work alone on here totals over seventy five minutes and is complemented by large swaths of both full length releases from our fearless host: 2006's triumph 'Dead Air' and 2009's mercurial celebration of all that is grey and gnarled 'SyMptoMs'. It's been one hell of a ride for all concerned, I would not hesitate to do it all over again and I'm sure neither would he. Bits of 'Carrion Squared' turn up, particles of 'The Tower' hang menacingly in the air. Why, he even tacks on two of his systemically malignant 'Travelogues' for good measure.

Whilst plundering his vault, Mr. Maxted were discovered to be holding out three unheard works and Shackleton were convinced to cough up two of their own. Even Vindicatrix has a new demo on 'ModernismuseuM' that is menace personified. It may be on his next album, it may not, but be warned: our troubadour of the bowel cut is one to decimate mental fortitude while he re-creates entirely new vistas of partially digested beats, operatics and if you look on the tube... pianos. If anyone else is out there doing what this one does with a single voice, some champagne flutes, an axe and the aforementioned tinkling ivories then I dare you to post it. Thanet, sadly do not make a showing, but three hours worth of burbling reconstituted astral navigation ought to be enough for anyone. Yes, I'm plugging his debut 'Receiving Calls'. Again. My man of the crayon Cosmic Dennis Greenidge gifts us two new DIY examples of how the word minstrel can be made to cover just about anything. Fearless is the one who can make it all the way through his single album, 'Giant Man, Giant Plan'. I would sign over my thumbs, Dennis, but I fear I'll have need of them if I want to keep typing. Ekoplekz offer up two of their finest pieces of discordant misanthropic mind boggling compositions yet heard. He plays live, you know, just nowhere near me. 'Variables II' standouts Sii knock softly on the door to your subconscious with their own brand of curtly elegiac dementia: "Shapes and Hills".

For you cliff note types, Ekoplekz has made an entirely mixed version of this which he plekzed out under the name "MMegaplekzed". A very dangerous thing, that one is. Be aware. He challenges the listeners to pick out where he stitched this creature together, I've managed to locate what I think are two spots. He says there are four, but we all know there's more: MMuch MMuch more. The final lap there, all cars are off the track, onto the victory circle... perhaps.

Oh wait just a moment, that's not even close to the checkered flag.

It doesn't even begin to reveal the true reasons to hunt down and capture 'ModernismuseuM'. The Baron has somehow managed -and I'm astonished that he pulled this off- to sneak on four pieces of music from the 'MisinforMation' DVD which was the first thing I reviewed here at Brutal Resonance. Stripped of their visual counterparts, these searing diamonds of aural viscera become somehow even more foreboding, their tones turning to a darker shade of malevolent alienation towards the world and everything in it. I should just shut up and be floored that these even made it on here but there is one more thing which eclipses even these slices of purest baleful bette noire and that is Brian Morant's remix of one of the Travelogues simply titled 'Kristello Overheard', or perhaps it is just more of his own authoritative escapist electronics slipping out of the nest. Brian Morant has but one other release out there, it's on Mordant Music and it is possibly the finest thing this label have yet done: a single long form cassette/download called 'Discrete Head'.

To understand the depth and impact of this outing, you would have to play it in succession to another unjustly obscured artist's work, Thighpaulsandra's solo debut ep 'Some Head'. I can see how much one carries on from where the other left off and it's no direct path in either sound or style. Just an ethos, a manifesto, a litany of occulticism. Or was that exorcism. It doesn't matter, Morant takes what may have been the Baron's and plunges it into a disembodied nightmare of droning dreariness that even someone like myself who loves those cloudy days can't help but feel... oppressed by. This is Mordant Music's status report to date and it's hoped that they don't stay away too long. The world would be all the poorer for it. Reporting from low tide on the corvid's wing... Aug 17 2011