User:Ninquelosse/sandbox/Mordant Music

Notes – per WP:Inline Citations References – per WP:CITE External links – see below and WP:External links

Live and compilation albums, EPs, singles, etc. should generally not be included.

For artists without separate discography pages, relevant discographical information, such as record labels, date(s) of release, chart positions, and sales certifications, may be included in the discography section. The use of a table may be advisable to keep the information readable and organized.

For further examples of good discography sections, see U2#Discography or Alice in Chains#Discography.

https://thequietus.com/articles/03115-bizarre-and-beautiful-mordant-music

Lead
Mordant Music (2001-2019) was a music label, sometimes also used to refer to music made by the group Mordant Music, or works by the label's originator Baron Mordant, who is from Hastings, UK.

The label has been compared to Ghost Box Records and Trunk Records as part of the 00s exploration of hauntology, library music and 1970s memoradelia and the haunted generation - but with a uniquely heavy sound, drawing from electronica and dubstep.

The word mordant is a pun: referring both to a musical term mordent, an acidic etching process, and related to the Latin word for "biting".

Early Career
Ian Hicks (a.k.a. Baron Mordant) has "a long history of involvement with post-rave and post-industrial dance"Reynolds2. He credits seeing Kraftwerk on their 1981 Computer World tour as the spark for his interest in electronic music

His early work can be found under various names for 400 Blows’ label Concrete Production (as 'Johnson Engineering Co./Havoc'), Orbital's Internal imprint (as 'Deadstock'), Leftfield’s Hard Hands label (as 'Broadway Danny Rose) and Portion Control

Mordant Music launched in 2001, with its first release: "a CD booklet – without a CD – called “Nijmegen”.

Mordant members and artists
Initially, Mordant Music was a "shadowy duo" of Baron Mordant and Admiral Greyscale (a.k.a. Gary Mills), who co-ran the label. Admiral Greyscale departed before SyMptoMs (2009), which only featured the Baron.

The Mordant Music label released music by Nick Edwards as Ekoplekz. From 2012, it also released regular collaborations of Ekoplekz and Baron Mordant under the name eMMplekz.

Baron Mordant also collaborated with Belbury Poly Ghost Box Study Series 03: Welcome to Godalming on Ghost Box Records, a hauntology label frequently compared and discussed alongside Mordant.

Mordant Music also released albums and singles by other artists, including Tod Dockstader, Vindicatrix, Cosmic Dennis Greenidge, Some Truths, Shackleton, Mr. Maxted and Brian Morant - with Jonny Mugwump suggesting that at least some of these may have been pseudonyms of the Baron

Notable Releases
The three parts of the dark ambient Tower series were released 2005-2009. The well-reviewed album series The Travelogues were released between 2007-2019, with 22 albums in total.

Dead Air (2006) was Mordant Music's breakout album, created by Baron Mordant and Admiral Greyscale. In the CD sleevenote, it is described as “the lost broadcast from a ghost transmission mast”, and Greyscale described the mood as "very much like a black box recording of a warning dredged post-apocalypse” The album combined dark electronica with spoken word segments by vintage television announcer Philip Elsmore, "sounding not unlike some lost Dr Who episode"

"'The duo persuaded Elsmore to come out of retirement and provided continuity for Dead Air, his reassuring voice applied to an increasingly bizarre series of utterances, from 'apologies for the sundry glitches… in the meantime, keep your nerve' to “the following contains graphic scenes of a strobing magpie's wing' to “keep sporing in the nessst”. Near the CD’s end, Elsmore declares that 'Mordant Music will be back once the dust has settled with more vague unpleasantness...Insinuating unease and “faint queasiness” are the duo’s modus operandi'"

eMMplekz - a project by Nick Edwards and Baron Mordant released through the label - was also well reviewed:

"the duo knit together Mordant's often cryptic, frequently sombre, occasionally scary and sometimes hilarious lyrics, ones that eviscerate modern British life even as they draw its portrait in vivid hues, with Edwards' mutated, sickly mélange of dub and electro-pop"

Notable releases include


 * synthesiser-based library music 1979-1980 by Tod Dockstader

End of the Project
In 2019, Baron Mordant announced the closure of the project after 99 releases over 20 years; Hicks continues to make library music.

reynolds on the last album

Musical style
– a summary of the sort of music played/written/performed by the musician/band – if the music style was new, then it should be also mentioned in Legacy

https://thequietus.com/articles/16299-incubate-2014-carter-tutti-void-goat-review

"hyper-sampleadelic plundering" https://ynamoh.blogspot.com/2008/06/mordant-music_4419.html

Albvums Which Got A Good Writeup
https://thequietus.com/articles/14910-hyperspecific-27-bass-clef-evian-christ-clark-ishan-sound Bedlam

Rook to TN34 https://thequietus.com/articles/19899-emmplekz-rook-to-tn34-review

Travelogues https://thequietus.com/articles/00917-fuck-art-let-s-dance-and-vice-versa-m-brad-and-j-mug-say-tara-to-08

general sources
Archive: http://www.mordantmusic.com/

radonbrainstorm.blogspot.com

https://thequietus.com/articles/09744-coi-mordant-music-misinformation-bfi-dvd

https://thequietus.com/articles/17394-jonathan-meades-announces-album

https://thequietus.com/articles/03115-bizarre-and-beautiful-mordant-music

https://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-caretaker-baron-mordant.html

https://blissout.blogspot.com/

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2019/05/mordant-music-mark-of-mould.html

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2014/10/you-might-also-like-emmplekz.html

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2013/05/im-in-2012-now.html

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2013/12/2013-best-lps.html

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2018/03/2018-unengaged.html#comment-form

https://twitter.com/MordantMusic

https://cardrossmaniac2.blogspot.com/2018/03/2018-unengaged.html#comment-form

Sources and critical reception
Retromania Ghosts of my Life

Style
Mordant Music are associated with hauntology and library music, but with a far heavier edge than other artists in these genres, referencing techno, dubstep , "danktronica" The Wire describe Mordant Music as "sound scavenger", "uneasy background sounds" and distorted spoken-word with "the dub treatment". . Simon Reynolds, a music journalist who championed their sound called it "eldritchronica".

Albums frequently include the spoken word, often patrician Queen's English voices chosen from classic British television; this includes BBC broadcaster Jonathan Meades, and former Thames TV announcer Philip Elsmore and playwright David Rudkin, or Hicks own deadpan voice.

Reynolds calls the Baron's writing style "uniquely macabre brand of Anglo-surreal humour"

Englishness is a recurring theme. On Ghost Box Study Series 03', they "examine this small English town." The album Rook to TN34 intends to "lacerate english culture", and You Might Also Like is described as

"a furrow-browed mooch around a Southern English bloke's outsider psyche. Expect sordid, name-dropping tales about an olde English tobacconist ('Name Blotter') and misanthropic rituals set to psychoactive dub in 'Stag Don't', next to unsettling kosmic dub ('Anglorum Saxonum'), and laments for Glastonbury ('Magical Mystery Megabahn'), plus the unsettling 'Bedrheum Raver', and the brilliantly scrambled syntax of 'Gargle Tronslate'." https://boomkat.com/products/you-might-also-like-e51cf199-62a9-48e0-a25e-dd90f10c2e1a

Receiving Calls by Thanet (where Nigel Farage was elected MP )is described as "transmitted from the edge of English civilisation...the Ramsgate-Oostende crossing...the Kentish cost"

Baron Mordant's final album is "one ripe terrain is the sort of modern-day U.K. ugliness that inspires online forums like Shit London and Boring Dystopia. A Robert Macfarlane of built-up Britain,"

Interesting things they have done
MisInformation https://www.thewire.co.uk/video/mordant-music_misinformation

Iain Sinclair https://thequietus.com/articles/15401-iain-sinclair-70x70-film-screenings-touch-of-evil-psycho

Soundtracks
Mordant Music have worked with the BFI five+ times, providing scores for archival footage.


 * 2009: MisinforMation, a BFI collection of Public Information Films from the Central Office of Informationre-scored by Mordant Music
 * 2011: an alternative soundtrack for Un Chien Andalou, as part of the BFI's release of L'Age D'Or
 * 2015: Kino-Pravda No 21 (1925) and One-Sixth Of The Globe (1925), released by the BFI in 2015 to accompany their Man With A Movie Camera release

Comic Book
In 2013, Baron Mordant and Zeke Clough released a 24-page comic book entitled Hard Shoulder, released in an edition of 200 copies.

Library Music
As well as being inspired by the legacy of library music, Mordant Music have also produced contemporary library music for Boosey and Hawkes https://cdr-projects.com/interview-baron-mordant-tod-dockstader/

"Admiral Greyscale: “They approached us on the back of Dead Air to produce some 'atmospheric drones' for them and we're in the process now...it's a natural habitat for MM and one which we hope to continue to reside in...I too thought that they had turned to dust, however, they have a vast online presence.”" https://blissout.blogspot.com/2006/12/haunted-audio-dubversion-deleted.html

Discography
https://www.discogs.com/artist/131298-Mordant-Music


 * ModernismuseuM (2011) - the label's 50th release, a 41 track celebration compilation featuring Shackleton, Ekoplekz, Mordant Music, Vindicatrix, Mr Maxted and others.

Baron Mordant
https://baronmordant.bandcamp.com/music

Ekoplekz
---

general guidelines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musicians/Article_guidelines Include a navbox at the bottom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Navbox_musical_artist

Add infobox to talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musicians/Infobox