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February 14, 2008
New Music: Mors Ontologica
Mors Ontologica: DREW CLAUSEN - Guitar, Vox, CROW - Keys,Vox, TIM O'DELL - Drums, JEFF WISEMAN- Bass
I’m now convinced that in an apartment building basement somewhere in the confines of Columbus, Ohio, that there is some sort of force that has been bending the musical timeline like a piece of paper making a direct portal between 1974 and 2008. This is the only explanation that I have for a band like Mors Ontologica, a band that hits on the sound of brazen pre dawn-punk layered with moody textures, but also has the ability to create a landscape that could only have been born as a reaction to the desperate times of the present.
Several months back I interviewed Mike “Rep” Hummel, the lo-fi ear that “lovingly f*cked with" Guided By Voices’ Propeller and Times New Viking’s Dig Yourself. Recently I opened up a package with one of Mike’s more recent projects, Mors Ontoligica’s The Used Kids Sessions. Now most doctors will agree that eight hours is the recommended amount of time for sleep. However what divides their opinion is whether eight hours the recommended time to record an album. On the one side you have the argument for excessive studio sessions; on the other side you have Mike Rep.
Mors Ontologica admits to first being very hesitant about the project. But Mike Rep persisted with the feel of the first Ramones LP in the back of his mind and finally was able to convince the band to go into a whirlwind eight hour session on November 27th, 2006.
Mors Ontologica - "Comeing Down"
Mors Ontologica - "Ghost and Shadows"
The Used Kids Sessions not only present an exuberant rush fueled by flasks and cases, but there is also a literate intensity in each verse and chord which is a sound that even the band didn’t expect to hear. When I spoke to the four members of Mors Ontologica a short while ago they still sounded shocked that the bass and drums could be heard distinctively on the album when they witnessed Mike’s use of only one shared mic on the drums and bass rig. Going into the recording session the band was thinking demo tape at best and practice session at worst, to their surprise not only did they have a demo but they had an album.
It’s a strange phenomenon when you play a contemporary band for someone and all of the sudden they are taken back to the days of Nixon resigning. Mike Rep summed it up perfectly saying, “I really like working w/ Mors O. they are the kind of band I always wanted to have in the 70's, a little Stranglers-y, a little Saints-y too I think, though they never to listened to either...”
True, Mors Ontologica know their musical past but it is my belief that they have arrived at this sound and are pushing it forward not because they are trying to do anything retro but because their sound is a direct reaction to a similar taste of dissatisfaction and anxiety prevalent in musical circles in 1974. It’s an example of a half baked theory of musical alchemy which suggests that you could take band A and mix them in a vacuum with the politics of B and the cultural sense of C and open the door and you’ve created say The Rolling Stones. If we took Beethoven and placed him in Chicago in 1970 would he end up being in Styx? If in a hundred years the government again adopts a theory of trickle down economics would bands all of the sudden start making music that sounded a tad like Thriller? This has yet to be determined, but the members of Mors Ontologica have placed the mirror on themselves and the sidewalk and have gone through struggles and angst common in 2008. Their music is a reflection of this present but is also based on the knowledge of an adjacent past.
You can catch Mors Ontologica on their first ever trip out East at:
March 1 2008 - CARABAR Columbus, OH w/ ROSEHIPS & THE LINDSAY
March 20 2008 - TRASH BAR Brooklyn, NY 8pm show!
March 22 2008 - GOODBYE BLUE MONDAYS Brooklyn, NY
// Mors Ontologica: The Used Kids Sessions and much more
// Mors Ontologica @ Myspace
Posted by Yonah Korngold at February 14, 2008 02:27 PM
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Comments
I like it when you bring the heat Yonah.
Posted by: Jeff K at February 15, 2008 10:30 AM
