Stromatolites

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Inaugurating a new label dedicated to those pioneers of electronic music whose work has fallen into obscurity with a record by an ensemble which you co-founded can be mistaken for a self-gratifying gesture. When the label curator is Roger Sutherland, the ensemble is Morphogenesis, and the record in question is another worthy peek at one of the more exemplary but underappreciated electroacoustic experimental units, such grandiosity can not only be understood but forgiven as well. Since their inception in 1985, an offshoot of a New Music class taught by Scratch Orchestra member Sutherland, Morphogenesis have maintained a semi-stable membership of Sutherland, Adam Bohman, Ron Briefel, Andy Cordery, Clive Graham, Clive Hall, Michael Prime and Fred Sansom. They've released a half dozen tapes, albums and CDs, but have yet to attain the status or recognition of improvising forebears like Musica Elettronica Viva and AMM. Morphogenesis recordings are always fascinating and unique, based on performance sessions which employ live electronics and resourceful instrumentation (radios, amplified springs, Primes water-machine, Bohmans prepared violin) but draw additional inspiration from each members artistic and photographic experiments and cull sounds from biologist Primes recordings of botanical biofeedback. Working with an already varied palette of electronics and acoustics, Morphogenesis further process selected excerpts from their sizeable archive of session recordings to achieve a distinctive signature sound stratified, homogenized, at once warm and natural yet obviously manipulated. Stromatolites consists of two such pieces, lengthy constructions created through the lamination of material recorded during various sessions (here a reduced Morphogenesis consisting of only Sutherland, Bohman and Prime), and one minimally edited live recording from March of 98 (Dark Abyss). If I recall my paleobiology, stromatolites were Precambrian ancestors of cyanophyta (blue-green algae). We owe our every breath (yea, our very existence!) to these unicellular prokaryotes, tireless chlorophyllous dynamos which fixed nitrogen in the soil and converted the carbon-dioxide saturated atmosphere of billions of years ago into the oxygenated air essential to life. There is definitely a process of fixture and conversion occurring in Stromatolites, not just the morphogenesis the development of form and structure from which the ensemble borrows its name. Bohmans sweeping gusts and Primes convective electronic swirls and bubbling textures are materially fused with Sutherland's arrhythmic knocks, hammerings and clatterings, interacting in a manner that is not so much conversational (as it tends to be in the similar structured-improvisation of Belgium's multimedia-oriented Noise-Makers Fifes collective) as it is actively procreative. The collocation of sound seems to be producing its own structure hence morphogenesis! Graham joins the condensed ensemble on Stromatolites 2, his supplemental electronics and amplified springs sparking a conflation of even fiercer and more eventful noises and contributing to an awesomely megalithic sonic dispersion. Morphogenesis regard their pieces as open-ended constructions to which further material may be added until optimum density has been achieved, potentially as eternal as the atmospheric CO2/O2 cycle which sustains plant and animal alike. Note also Sutherland's ingenious artwork, the front cover painted in short and choppy green scrapes, the back cover dominated by diagonal streaks of blue and white, the middle panel of the booklet done with a kinetic collision of mixed blue-green strokes. Genius within and without, with equal credit to Primes masterful mixing. But I have a little trouble with the live piece. Since they have rejected the instrumental cohesiveness of jazz-derived improvisation, a virtually direct-to-tape Morphogenesis recording inevitably feels less focused than th e groups laminated efforts. These individuals are able improvisers, and the 25 minutes of Dark Abyss demonstrate no lack of inventiveness in the arrangement of electroacoustic noise. Prime and Graham have tampered lightly with Dark Abyss - in two stages, in fact but minimal editing does not suit the textural emulsification which has become Morphogenesis notable trademark. This long piece is just too linear, despite the multilayered coincidence of elements, and a little too arbitrary to measure up to the high standard of tracks which have been subjected to these artists brilliant studio techniques. Fine as a piece of multihued improvisational ambience; less valid as a Morphogenesis construct.