Morphine
The Night

The Morphine have always been in my heart. More precisely, their music has always been in my heart. Soft, jazzy, intimate like never before. Like a small orchestra down in the lower floors where the voice is hoarse and the smoke is thick. I unconditionally adore all the albums by the Boston band with a preference for "Cure For Pain", a true hidden treasure (at least that's how I like to think of it) from the '90s. How would they have transformed/evolved if Mark Sandman hadn't tragically passed away on stage (heart attack) in a lousy Italian summer?

This posthumous "The Night" from 2000, created in perfect isolation in Mark's home studio (but rather well-equipped) just before he died, dramatically heightens the regret. The arrangements here appear fuller with piano, organ, some guitar (very few in reality), cello, and other various pleasantries, but the mood of the record does not change an iota from what is typical of Morphine: dark, melancholic, dense. Indeed, if possible, the songs are even more introspective and nocturnal. Sandman's voice is more intense and baritonal than ever, while Dana Colley's sax (coincidentally baritone) intertwines naturally with both the bass (two strings, Mark used to say they were more than enough) and Billy Conway's schematic and precise drums (famous for the almost non-use of cymbals). In short, as always, it becomes difficult to describe a work of this kind as the sounds are truly unique in the world. A blend of blues, jazz, even lounge influences from which the trio extracts the darkest matter.

The opening "The Night" is a small submerged gem where the voice envelops you by surprise like darkness in an alley. And you remain there, hypnotized, without any possibility of escape, moreover hindered by immediate physical and cerebral relaxation. Every single song penetrates deeply within you ("Like a Mirror"), draws you into delicate imaginary worlds (the stunning and Arabian "Rope on Fire"), and at the moment the music leads to the final "Take Me With You", I am sure you will try (it happens to me this way) to physically prevent its conclusion...

Then the lyrics: Sandman is also a great songwriter, his lyrics focus more on evoking images, more often than not decadent, distressing, and claustrophobic, perfectly in line with the emotionally unsettling (but at the same time enchanting) mood of the music. All this to say that "The Night" is a completely fitting title, indeed, I would say perfect. It's the moment it was surely written, played, and the moment it should be listened to.

"The analgesic activity of morphine unfolds on two fronts: raising the pain threshold and simultaneous reduction of the emotional response to the pain itself. This means that even when the sensation of pain is not completely eliminated but only lessened, it is still made much more tolerable if not negligible in relation to the absence of its emotional corollaries: anxiety, panic, fear, suffering, prostration."

Considering also that this substance causes strong addiction, tell me now: is there a more fitting name than Morphine to describe their music?