Morphine Night CD

Morhpine: Mark Sandman (vocals, acoustic guitar, 2-string slide & electric basses, trombone, piano, organ, tri-tar); Dana Colley (tenor, baritone, bass & double saxophones, piano, background vocals); Billy Conway (drums, percussion, background vocals).
Additional personnel: Joseph Kessler (viola); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Brahim Fribgane (oud, frame drum); John Medeski (organ); Mike Rivard (upright bass); Billy Beard (hand drum); Margaret Garrett, Tara McManus, Linda Viens, Caroln Kaylor, Ramona Clifton (background vocals).
Engineers include: Mark Sandman, Brian Dunton, Matthew Ellard.
Recorded at Hi-N-Dry & Super Sonic Studios, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Magic Shop, New York, New York.
Personnel: Dana Colley (vocals, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, bass saxophone, piano); Billy Conway (vocals, snare drum, percussion); Tara McManus, Linda Veins, Margaret Garrett, Carolyn Kaylor, Ramona Clifton (vocals); Joseph Kessler (viola); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Mark Sandman (trombone, piano, organ, bass guitar); John Medeski (organ); Michael Rivard (upright bass); Billy Beard, Brahim Fribgane, Jerry Deupree (snare drum).
Recording information: Hi-N-Dry Cambridge, MA; Magic Shop, NY; Super Sonic Cambridge, MA.
Morphine's fourth studio release, 1997's Like Swimming, was a bit of a disappointment when compared to such stellar earlier releases as Cure for Pain and Yes. After singer/two-string bassist Mark Sandman died of a heart attack on-stage in 1999, many Morphine fans assumed that Like Swimming would be the band's swansong -- thankfully, it wasn't. The Boston trio completed their fifth album just prior to Sandman's untimely passing, entitled The Night, and it's definitely an improvement over its predecessor. Whereas many of the songs on their previous album sounded unfinished and rushed, The Night sounds like a fully realized work. In fact, the band took time to focus on expanding their minimalist sound to include other instruments (cello, violin, upright bass, oud, organ) and new approaches (female backup singers, string arrangements), while Sandman produced the album himself. Highlights include the ghostly "Souvenir," the Middle Eastern sounds of "Rope on Fire," the sultry album-opening title track, and the up-tempo (by Morphine standards, anyway) "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer." The Night shows that Morphine was just entering a new phase of their career, and it's a shame that Mark Sandman is no longer with us to follow through on this promising new direction. ~ Greg Prato
Don't let the name mislead you. While some might jump to the conclusion that a name like Morphine would be reserved for another derivative, abrasive metal band, this band's music is something completely different. Morphine was in one fact of the most original indie-rock bands of the '90s. It's ironically tragic that vocalist/bassist Mark Sandman's untimely passing from a heart attack cut the band's future short before the release of the group's last and possibly most brilliant album, THE NIGHT.
Morphine's sound could possibly described as a jazzy, musical backdrop to beat poetry. As soon as the two-stringed fretless bass and baritone saxophone open "The Night," the listener is put into a hypnotic, trance-like state. Sandman's smooth, baritone vocals are the focal point of "Souvenir." The sexy feel of "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer" is only accentuated by female background vocals. "Like a Mirror" is subtly beautiful; and the haunting line "I'm like a mirror / I'm nothing 'till you look at me" is striking. "Rope on Fire" uses a harmonic-minor melody to engender an Eastern feel. The instrumental syncopation and Roger Waters-influenced vocals of "I'm Yours, You're Mine" showcase the passion of an unsung artistic genius whose absence leaves behind an insatiable void.Rolling Stone (3/2/00, p.95) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...THE NIGHT is the band's most painstakingly layered and ambitious album, with cello, organ and oud expanding on the trio's original sax-y swagger..."
Spin (3/00, pp.148-9) - 8 out of 10 - "...the sound of [Mark] Sandman doing his damnedest to go beyond the 2-stringed bass slurps and baritone-sax blurts that veiled his band's rote blues redux....expanding Morphine's doeful drones with piano elegies, mourning strings and braying saxophone..."
Q (3/00, p.104) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...the trio's nearly sub-sonic blues, jazz and beat poetry hybrid once again evoking a dangerous Spanish Harlem drinking den..."
Uncut (3/00, p.88) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Groovy, rocky in parts and full of Sandman's laconic vocals, THE NIGHT is noir rock at is most stylish..."
Alternative Press (3/00, p.88) - 4 out of 5 - "...makes the most mundane moments of life seem transcendent....Morphine prove that established bands can progress and mature with dignity..."
Magnet (4-5/00, p.83) - "...The band's finest work....a fitting goodbye, dense with 2 years of struggle and pointed toward a new direction, a jazzy funk minimalism the rest of us can only dream about."
CMJ (1/31/00, p.3) - "...may be [Morphine's] most chilling album. Impending danger, primal urges and beatnik minimalism were the key ingredients in [their] bohemian blues throb, and they're all here in spades..."
Melody Maker (2/22/00, p.47) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...he may be talking about space travel...but this is the closest to Heaven's Gate that music has yet to come....Mark Sandman was a visionary, a dark-eyed angel..."
Mojo (Publisher) (2/00, p.86) - "...features some of the best work [Mark Sandman's] done....experimenting with the band's dark, often minimalist sound...the result is this lusher, more fully realised album...with songs that are variously cool, unsettling, sensual, personal and party-time funky..."