Review: Ron Morelli – A Gathering Together

Ron Morelli
A Gathering Together

Hospital Productions
Street: 09.21
Ron Morelli = Corporate Park + Vereker + Violet Poison

While the album title A Gathering Together seems to include the presence and (potential) enjoyment of that company, L.I.E.S label-head Ron Morelli’s latest sounds fully internal, as if ingested and playing out through the hard bone and soft tissues of Morelli’s body—very much removed from any sort of extroverted pleasures. The resulting work is an assemblage of buried synths, scraping metal dirges, pulsing and living gurgles and submerged cellular breathing that rides the bleeding edge between sound-art and dark-ambient. The exhale of waste and filth, the inhale of the same—there is rhythm to this record. It’s a creeping, bottom-feeding rhythm that scrapes its barnacle-y claws along the ocean’s floor but rarely peeks its head above the churning seas of Morelli’s anti-social milieu. It’s transcendental headphone music. –Ryan Hall