Morpion is me, Martin Herron, a 33 year-old producer/electronica artist from Wallsend in the North East of England. Morpion came about in January 2009, although I’ve been producing and writing music in one way or another since about 1994.
I first picked up a guitar aged 10 or 11, but a detail which is probably more relevant to this story is the fact that around the same time I discovered that if I pushed the pause button down a bit on the tape deck in my bedroom, it sped the tape up and I could make strange noises by recording myself talking and burping into the microphone; I also spent more time than I’d like to admit taping the swooshing noises between radio stations. Thus began a fascination with all things to do with audio; I can remember finding out that you could never say a word exactly the same way twice, and subsequently spending hours trying to say the word “butterfly” twice in a row in exactly the same way. (I’ve no idea how I’d ever have been able to prove that I had, if I had, but never mind). I think I’m painting a bit of an odd picture of myself here…
Anyway, the downside of this interest in the workings of audio was that in the mid ’80s I didn’t really have much opportunity to explore the subject any further, as back then the internet was something that 99% of people had yet to hear about. Looking back, I suppose I could have just gone round the corner to the library, but bearing in mind I was an eleven year old boy, bikes, Transformers and playing football were way more appealing than the idea of reading about John Cage and Karl Stockhausen. Having said that, if I’d known then what I know now I’d like to tell myself to seek out those books; if only there was some way of going back in time and talking to my 11 year-old self… but then again, if Back To The Future is to be believed that would lead to some kind of distortion in the space/time continuum and quite possibly the destruction of the present as we know it, and I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now; I’d be a goat herder or something. What was I talking about again?
Oh yes: In my mid teens I was introduced to the music of µ-ziq, Aphex Twin, etc, by a lad I went to school with, and I also discovered Pavement (who became the most important musical discovery of my teenage years) completely by accident because someone had put Slanted and Enchanted into the Pearl Jam section in HMV (I was going through a bit of a grunge period at the time). After having a generally mod-influenced childhood thanks to an older brother who loved The Jam and The Who, suddenly I had all this weird discordant music and electronic sounds in my record collection. I started making experimental noise on a 4 track tape machine by smashing records I’d buy from charity shops to pieces, gluing then back together, sandpapering them down, and sampling them on a cheap little sampler. I was also writing acoustic songs on a guitar, and would try to combine the two elements to make some kind of industrial noise/acoustic thing. Inevitably, the results were utter crap.
When I realised that the easiest way to do what I was trying to do was to do it on a computer instead of a 4 track, I tried out a few sequencing programs, settled on Logic, and continued making horrible noise, only now it was digitally clipped, over-quantised horrible noise rather than hissy, sloppily-timed crap. I was quite inventive though, at least; I’d punch mattresses lined with carrier bags to make drums, put matches out in glasses of water for hi-hats, and generally cause havoc in the kitchen looking for things to hit or break or squash. It was invariably all unlistenable dross, but I thought I was a misunderstood genius. I did somehow get one 7″ out on a tiny independent Barcelona-based label thanks to a friend of mine who was a decent producer and remixed some of my stuff, which he swore he liked for some inexplicable reason. I never found out anything about this record - what name the track was released under, how many copies were pressed, nothing. All I know is it was one of those record subscriber/club things where you pay a subscription and you get a 7″ through the post every month. I must be one of the only people on Earth to have had a record out but to have absolutely no evidence at all to support that claim…
Fast forward a few years, and thanks to the time I spent working as a live monitor engineer at the Riverside in Newcastle and as an assistant sound engineer in music and post-production audio studios in London, I picked up tips from seasoned professionals, and got experience thanks to downtime in the studio trying to figure out how those rectangular metal boxes with dials did what they did (and subsequently blowing the entire studio’s electricity supply thanks to not quite understanding them as well as I thought I did, and one evening I accidentally produced a bass note so loud and deep that it almost certainly opened a door to another dimension, but then everything went black and quiet and the maintenance guy had to come and repair the amp). My own music eventually started to sound a bit more professional, and finally I managed to bridge the gap between the kind of music I wanted to make, and the technical ability to make it (arguably) quite well produced.
So, why “Morpion”? I took it from a book called English As She Is Spoke; an unusual guide for speaking English aimed at Portuguese travellers which was written in the late 19th century. The author couldn’t actually speak English himself, and only had a Portuguese to French and a French to English dictionary to help him write the book. It’s insanely funny. Morpion is, according to the book, a “sorte of fishe”. I’ve only just found out it’s actually a word for a bug or louse; I’ll have to make up some clever reason for calling myself Morpion now, in case I ever make it big. I can’t just say “I called myself after a bug”, because that’s stupid. Maybe some rubbish about evolving musically would sound convincingly arty.
To finish off, some random stuff about me: I’m a certified Apple technician. I have an almost unhealthy obsession with all things post-modern, and I have a collection of really strange books, including an encyclopaedia written in a completely made-up language about plants and animals that don’t exist, and also what I think is one of the only copies in existence of a first person factual account of going insane, written in the 1920s. I collect street art and occasionally DJ. When I DJ, you’re far more likely to hear me play northern soul, early 90s indie, or 80s hip hop than electronica. My left lung has collapsed 4 times. One of my brothers is a published author. Make mine a Guinness.
Guilty pleasure: One Thing by Amerie.
Favourite snack in studio: Marmite on toast and a nice cup of tea.
And that, as they say, is that.
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