Mori Lucrum / Upward – split

3.20.19 by Ryan Masteller

I don’t want to scare you guys too much, but this split on Turlin out of Dorset (that’s the UK) is really spooky. Mori Lucrum, which sounds like an incantation during the darkest part of a séance and means either “die profit” or “death profit,” builds synthesizer drones from the lowest frequencies. They creep up on you as you listen, gradually building in volume and crossing the threshold of more audible tones (my hearing ain’t what it used to be, that’s for sure). Then, they flash into bright grays like flaring magnesium through an old TV set. Also birdsong, to break the tension I guess. Tension should always be broken by birdsong – it’s just how we’re wired to cope.

That actually doesn’t sound so scary after all, and maybe my ears, damaged from all those years of experimental guitar feedback sculpting (I have a degree in it), are simply not able to parse the details. Tinnitus turns out to be the scariest monster of all. Joke’s on the Head Editor at Tabs Out.

Just kidding… I was a folkie.

My web of lies brings us to side B (or maybe it’s A, who knows with this crazy tape), where an artist called Upward, who is impossible to search for online because “Upward Bandcamp” returns this completely irritating link, ditches electronics for the ol’ seven-string, or so I’m told. But Upward is the real spook here, the real ghoul, the real poltergeist. The one haunting the old house where all the murders happened (why do people keep buying that house?). The mood is tense throughout, and distraught human voices even punctuate the mix, none more so than on final track “Anxious.” Here, we get the full-on internal crisis full force, a deluge of misunderstanding and predicament. It’s torture. But it’s gripping.

Do you buy tapes for their j-card stock sometimes? This one’s a super winner, “2 panel 300gsm conqueror laid j-card, [plus] on body decals and white Norelco case.” So thick, so tactile. “C30 superferro tape housed insdie a white screwed shell. Individually home dubbed in real time on an Akai GXC-710D.” You nerds are going to love this. Edition of 25. Seven left as of this writing.