Morgan Delt

Morgan Delt

2010's - current...? (most recently featured on a "Re-Works" album by artist Volleyball in 2021.)
alternative indie/psychedelic rock 
first song that reeled me in: "Some Sunsick Day" Phase Zero, 2016

One of those songs that immediately felt familiar. It didn't remind me of anything but it instantly wrapped me in a soft blanket. Filling me with the same simple luxury a languid summer morning might. One where you're sprawled on the couch with a comic book or magazine or pulp fiction in your underwear. It's still early enough to fool yourself into thinking "I'll get up in a minute and get something accomplished". (You won't, but there will be no regret - only a shrug of your shoulders.) The window nearby is open. The breeze gives the room a little life and easy motion. It moves so you do not have to. You smell fresh air. It covers you. You smile.


MORGAN DELT (2014)
"Make My Grey Brain Green" swirls around you like a curious vampire as we start this self-titled collection. You are not quite prey, as this chaotic neutral swishes its tail, cocks its head, raises its brow. It is intrigued or even fascinated by you. It circles. By the time the hefty bassline swings in, you're running out of its den with your adventurous crew - what brought you here? 

Wait wait wait. 
Before I go any further - I'd better not. This could make a decent short. 

This is a far deeper, more dangerous sound than the track that brought me to this artist, but this does not shock me. The gateway track was so peaceful and sweet that I wouldn't imagine an artist would be able to make many more like it. I figured it would be a "stand out" track - but I am very pleasantly surprised that their other stuff may just be weirder and a bit darker! Certainly this album gives me more of the psychedelic rock impression promised by my genre google-search. "Barbarian Kings" skates through feeling like the intensifying of your first LSD trip. Threatening your psyche and yet consuming you with a previously unknown ease and joy. 

All I see when I play tracks from this album are clips from un-created animated features from the early eighties. Something similar to The Last Unicorn. Something with adventure and danger! Something full of dynamic characters and legitimately good music from real bands. This entire album sweeps you into its universe. The tracks feel related/in the same family without being generic / forgettable / without the album disappearing into the background of the party. Its the soundtrack to the party! With a closing track appropriately called: "Main Title Sequence". A strong collection overall. 

PHASE ZERO (2016)

You've left the party and traveled off to a distant island. You're taking a vacation somewhere with sun and warmth and easy street music. Somewhere you suddenly quite take to a breakfast of fresh fruit because you have never tasted fruit so delicious as you have here. Track one, "I Don't Wanna See What's Happening Outside" settles you into the hammock of your hotel balcony. You're safe and away. From work, responsibility, reality. The weight of it has been shed. "The System of 1000 Lies" recalls slight memory of the previous album's danger, but still isn't as dark. The sun's still out. Perhaps you're with the friend that makes you feel safe and brave, so the threat has been mostly removed. 

"The Age of the Birdman" sets you off into a Pink-Floydian trance while the funk of "Mssr. Monster" brings you to a very dance-y place. The following tracks (before our hero track, which closes out the collection) I find to be somewhat on that forgettable side of things that the previous album was able to avoid. 

All in all: While the gateway track, "Some Sunsick Day" is a singular experience I am very likely to have a craving for and continue to search out to revisit, the first album is clearly the stronger body of work, as a whole. And as such: will be the one I turn to when I need to sink into a cool, trippy, dangerous vibe.