It was in June 2016 and just over 5 years ago today that Glenn Morrison's majestic 'Goodbye' crashed into the Billboards at Number 1 for 11 weeks in a row. One of the first Canadian electronic music acts ever to do so, and in the years ahead became a long running battle with bemused Top Of The Pops producers, who couldn't work out what to do with a classical pianist turned underground club wunderkind turned pop superstar, who largely performs behind a mixing desk, absorbed in the act of creation. In a sense, you could see their point.
For the rest of us, it was a good time. Dance records were starting to make a mass impact on the mainstream. Invention was in the air. For Morrison, on the other hand, it was confusion. Though the establishment classed him as a classical music composer and pianist, DJs would play his tunes and the radio would play his pop hits - this was a multilayered cake of an artist with deep roots in musical understanding and translation.
What Morrison has been doing over these years is quietly spearheading a movement away from the utilitarian musical philosophies that had come to dominate on the club fringe: the idea that to fill a dance floor for a few hours was enough. As Glenn Morrison, he wanted to make music that you could listen to anywhere; he wanted to play live like a band plays live, to improvise and challenge what it means to be an electronic act on the touring landscape. That word improvise is the key. To this day, Morrison still declines to describe himself as a 'dance' act.
'I don't differentiate between electronic music or any other kind' says Glenn, who, at the age of 35, is at the forefront of the global electronic music scene, with his classical ambient compositions, to his brooding techno modular iterations, to his meditative piano scores.
In other words, Glenn Morrison has helped to reclaim electronic music as an art form, one with a history stretching back more than 50 years. Take 'Love You' and the recent single 'Just Over The Bridge', for instance, with their spiralling, chattering main theme and chaotic cross-rhythms - they have more in common with the work of avant grade orchestral composers such as Michael Nyman or Philip Glass. This is allied to a purity of sound most often associated with early electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. The stuttering arpeggiated clashes of 'Modern Classical' or 'Controlled Randomization' bring to mind the vintage moves of Human League or Brian Eno. These fragments give a pleasantly direct, post-acid, modern spin. You can dance to it if you want. You don't have to.
We are proud to unveil Glenn's latest artistic album offering, and for all news please go to your friendly Google and search for Glenn Morrison on your favourite portals. We will be pressing limited edition vinyl and check us out on the Alpine Mastering website and store for all label updates. Thank you for your support after all of these years.
This release will be serviced through Your Army Promo (UK) - for all DJ support and radio spins please speak with Tom and Will Brigham. Fall From Grace Records / Sony Music 2021.
