Purism is all well and good but things get more exciting when you mix them up, as Michael Morph has done on his ten-years-coming debut album. From his days selling gas door to door with Chris from Crazy P, to his move to Brighton from Nottingham he’s bounced between techno, breaks and house – often at the same time. His ‘Something For The Weakened’ LP goes from electro-rave to beautiful downtempo tracks without missing a beat
Dance music thrives on pigeonholing stuff, but you stuff isn’t obvious. How do you describe it?
I think the best way to describe it is all over the fucking place, but in a good way. I’ve been told there is definitely some kind of ‘vibe’ running through it, but I can’t see it myself. You’ve got to remember though, that this is my first album in 10 years of producing all kinds of music – albeit intermittently – so it’s kind of a summary of everything I’ve been into in the last 10 years, dance music wise.
How did the hook up with Yo Majesty come about?
Deekline was doing a mix for me a while back, and he often gets vocalist involved when being commissioned to do remixes, and asked if we’d be interested in getting them on the track, and I was bang up for it because I’d been caning their ‘Club Action’ track. So he did the mix, got them to record a vocal for it from Florida; meanwhile I was doing another mix of the track myself, and long story short, ended up fusing all the vocal from Deekline’s mix with my own remix to form a brand new mega-hybrid track!
‘Something For The Weakened’ is a clever title – do you feel rave damaged?
Not really; maybe a little rave weary sometimes? But that’s the time to slap yourself round the face with some hot new music, which there is never a short supply of, regardless of what the doom-sayers would have us believe.
They both have great dance cultures but what’s the difference between Brighton and Nottingham?
I lived in Notts for ten years but I’m originally from Louth in Lincolnshire (big up). Brighton and Notts are similar in a lot of ways, like the people, which is why I stayed in Notts for ten years, and why I subsequently moved down here. It’s nice not reading about shootings every couple of days, but then again, I’ve bought the Argus once in three years, and that was for the free World Cup wallchart.
You’ve shared the stage with Plump DJs and Groove Armada – what have been your most exciting gigs?
Playing at Matter – RIP – last year was quite exciting, especially as I was following James Lavelle who was a big inspiration to me when I was teenager. Playing on the Glade Stage at Glastonbury the first year they had it, was very exciting for a 22 year-old.
Who have been supporters of your tracks?
Quite a cross section. Laurent Garnier, Slam, James Lavelle, Groove Armada, Freq Nasty, Dave Spoon, Hyper for a start. A techno remix I did recently was even liked by Pete Tong. He used to officially start the weekend, but now I think he just carries Annie Mac’s headphones and does a bit after she’s gone. Get Tongy back from 7pm. He shouldn’t have to be up that late at his age.
What’s next?
A few remixes in the bag and on the go; next one out is Heavy Deviance ‘Day To day’ on Stop/Start recordings. And a single with remixes; probably ‘Let’s Spend Money’. Album launch party next month, followed by a massive hangover.
FYI
ALBUM: ‘Something For The Weakened’ out now
WEB: tinyurl.com/morphweb
iDJ SAYS: “”Watch out for Morph, the next 12 months will be his year”
