Accustomed to examining records released by bands or musicians who make years pass between releases, it always makes a certain effect to be in the presence of a guy like the German Argwohn, who with his solo project Morphinist, has already produced 10 full lengths since 2013, not counting the remaining bands in which, alone or in company, he is currently involved. Difficult, then, to imagine our daily grappling with something that is not a musical instrument, although we must admit that such a prolificacy usually suggests a possible dispersion of energy at the expense of the overall quality. Precisely because of this prejudice and not knowing the past of Morphinist, (also because it would take a few weeks to listen to all the material produced) I have to say that I was really surprised by a work like Terraforming, the ninth in the series (in fact, last month, the Hamburg proggist has already released the next Giants) that leaves nothing in the way of intensity and focus at the compositional level. What is proposed in the album in question is the so-called post-black, or a very atmospheric version of the wide drifts and ambient doom genre born in Norway in the early ’90s, with which in fact the links are found at vocal level and rhythmic accelerations in blast beat; both in terms of graphics and sound is evident an inspiration of cosmic matrix, which in the slowed down parts can even get close to Monolithe (this happens especially in Terraforming I), and all this makes it extremely intriguing the work of Argwohn, which shows throughout the disc to also have a remarkable melodic taste. Terraforming is, in fact, a work that, skimmed of its roughest moments, can be listened to with a certain ease, marked by liquid passages and fine execution (splendid for example the opening of the third part); these thirty-five minutes intense and convincing put the name Morphinist among those to be circled with a red circle, in the group of those who move in the same musical field. At this point I’m curious to hear what Argwohn has come up with for Giants which, unlike Terraforming, does not seem to enjoy the same gift of synthesis, since it consists of four tracks of about twenty minutes each.
We will let you know…
2016 – Sick Man Getting Sick Records
Mournful Sounds 
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