Mbube is a strange mix of indie pop, hip hop and reggae. Opening track ‘miracle of birth’ is odd and slightly unsettling, all desperation and claustrophobic paranoia. It signals a real departure from the primarily jaunty indie pop of 2012’s Sailor (perhaps closer in sound to KHLS’s debut album high & low). The second track, ‘connected to my body’, is far more easygoing, with a lilting reggae vibe, a vibe which continues into the following tracks. ‘trying to walk’ is a good example of how Morisano’s three-pronged attack of weird/sad/feel-good is so effective, with the lyrics that are strange and unclear and could mean a number of things:

“i walk in the woods and i walk to the water lord
i wash my feet in the water lord
i wash my body in the water lord
i wash my head in the water lord

trying to wash this away
been trying to walk.”

The strangeness continues on ‘I’m feeling high’, which ends with clip from a videotape created by the leader of the infamous Heaven’s Gate UFO religion-cum-mass-suicide tragedy. Things change direction again with ‘mbube baobab,’ an instrumental track that sounds like a hip hop remix of a video game soundtrack, and the final two tracks which lean towards the indie pop side of things, giving the album a sunny and catchy finale.

Morisano is an experimentalist, someone who does his own thing (or, more accurately, his own 50 things). He isn’t afraid to chop and change, to mess with sounds and atmospheres. He uses a whole host of instruments, vocal samples and loops, and in the wrong hands this could prove a recipe for disaster. Luckily for us, Morisano proves himself more than capable, turning the numerous building blocks into something moreish, a joyously weird trip into the recesses of his brain.

Get Mbube right now on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Bandcamp.

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