image courtesy of Unsung Hunger PR

EP Review of MORRR: Marrow Weavers (MFZ Records)

Italian artist MORRR, a musical identity of Dario Gatto, delivers a cool collection of dark, haunting music on Marrow Weavers. This album, originally released in 2022, was re-released in 2023 by MFZ Records, with the addition of a remixed version of its final track, “Tantalo,” by NTS Radio DJ Francesco Fusaro (aka Froz), one of MFZ Records’ co-founders.

Marrow Weavers is a collection of slow, haunting, dark music. It’s frequently depressively, hauntingly flowing but also mixes in some white noise-ish distortion to alter the power dynamic within the songs, creating MORRR’s uniquely original sound. This EP provides an encompassing experience that’s hard to convey in words, though I’ll try. Rest assured, it’s a powerful – but oddly coolly relaxing, given its darkness – listen.

“Riptide” is an edgy, yet slow-tempoed, opening track. It flows into the softer “Waking Up,” which begins mellow and, by slowly adding new instrumentation… well, wakes up, I suppose.

“These Wide Eyes” is a bit of a placeholder song, not so much as part of the EP but, rather, the em0otional mood it conveys is akin to the version of the smiley face emoji with a straight-line for a mouth. In the beginning and throughout most of the song, the mood and tempo are a slow, eerie creep with simple instrumentation before ending with a lot of buzz and activity; even then, the track never losing a feeling of emotional ambivalence.

Finally, the EP closes with two versions of “Tantalo.” Both versions feature the distorted, plodding twang that, for me, is the memorably signature sound of this EP. The original “Tantalo” would have been a fine enough sendoff into the ether, providing a cohesive ending to Marrow Weavers. However, on “Tantalo (Froz Chopped & Hopped Remix),” Froz adds in some more complex, layered sounds and a vibe that causes me to prefer the remix just slightly over the original. (Sometimes, collaboration makes things better!)

In any case, as a whole, complete listen, this is a cool five-song EP that allows the listener to pleasantly experience some dark moods. A couple of the “tags” at the end of this EP’s Bandcamp page that sum up the sound perhaps better than any new label I could come up with are “dreamwave” and “indietronica.” But really, it’s just a stylistically different example of the kind of cool, well-conceived, very original music I enjoy. Maybe you will, too.