Ron Morelli

A Gathering Together is Ron Morelli's second full-length for Hospital Productions, a "techno" cacophony brought to its granular detail and reduced to its most elemental tonal depths. A cohesive fusion of surreal and feverish déjà-vu loops, brittle noise, fucked rhythms, scrap-metal percussions, pro-one metal synths, and an injection of near-buried Drāno vocal samples, it's a fearsome celebration of brokenness and of amplified surroundings, with stereo-shifting drones and driving rhythms that tell the stories of those now gone -- more a soundtrack for a wake than 4/4 crafted for the dancefloor. There's a naked anxiety at work that doesn't turn away from loss but runs with an excited melancholy toward a future that won't exist. The boldness of the gestures is not to be confused with exuberance. With this effort Morelli has shown remarkable restraint and patience, most notably highlighted on title-track "A Gathering Together," an intense cut born from rapid-paced dead-end urban environments that force people together. It's a calling to do more, include more, and celebrate the many forms within those inconspicuous places. Upon numerous listens, it's clear that the sound-design is a reflection of heavy compositional themes that suggest a greater whole. This is hard, dirty techno -- humid, reduced, bare-bones, yet dense and dissolved to its electronic soil. Heavy without being oppressive, it is the culmination of many elements pulled from all spheres of modern electronics, eaten, digested, and spit back out. Produced at the end of 2014, with final mixdown and additional production in spring 2015 by Krikor Kouchian and Ron Morelli in Paris. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.