Morphine
Cure For Pain

THE REVIEW

"What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", word of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Let's take a very famous aphorism by Frank Zappa: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture". So what? According to this: one should remain silent about music. Again Zappa: "Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read". Despite this, we all have more or less an idea of what this blessed music is. Good, take this idea, flush it down the toilet and pull the chain.

Morphine have done nothing but this, depriving Rock music of its main instrument, the guitar; it’s a bit like mocking thirty (and more) years of music. It's no joke, it’s not everyone who can overcome the barriers imposed by common consciousness, habit, and chance. It's a bit like Chuck Berry did when he "invented" Rock 'n' Roll, like Beefheart did when he destroyed it. Morphine have the great merit of being the first to offer the classic mix of Rock & Blues without a guitar. Theirs is a search for the possibilities of music. For this, they are great, for this formal revolution of Rock.

Having traditional Blues in mind, this music cannot be understood. These songs are as far from sublime as anything could ever exist, shy, calm, measured, and rational (in sharp contrast to Blues). The emotion is there, but it's almost imperceptible due to the predominance of structure over content. In reality, everything is calculated. In reality, our guys have done nothing but calculate, that's why I was talking about a formal revolution before. It’s a work of the mind. They didn't invent anything; they just played what had always been there with different instruments. The result is an original, unique, and current genre (today it’s already a classic), but with many references to the origins.

The music of Morphine is a music that lives on a wonderful contrast. The cold reason (in the economy of the work, nothing is left to chance) and the enveloping warmth of Sandman's voice. Morphine's music is music that stands out from all the rest: essential instrumentation and scantiness of sound. In short, they didn't invent anything, but they have been among the most original groups of all time, they didn't invent anything, but few have gone "against the grain" like them.

Morphine consists of: Mark Sandman (vocals and bass), Dana Colley (saxophone), Jerome Dupree (drums from 1989 to 1993 and from 1998 to 1999), Billy Conway (drums from 1993 to 1998).

As for the album. This "Cure For Pain" (released in September 1993 and now hard to find) follows the epochal (I don't believe I’m exaggerating) debut "Good" (1992), which perhaps remains the best of their discography. An album (Good) where all their art is condensed in barely forty minutes. In "Cure For Pain" you can notice changes regarding the production work, the structure of the tracks, and the instrumentation. The production is clearly more conventional, the sounds are fuller and more vivid. The structure of the tracks "normalizes" a bit, but without losing style (that of Morphine) and therefore beauty. The instrumentation is enriched (in a couple of tracks) by the guitar, nothing more. A dominant deep sense of melancholy remains in their music. The 13 tracks are just as many gems that maintain their purity listen after listen. Perhaps this is the main characteristic of their music: purity.

Extraordinary.