Alphabethead signs with Sunreturn, releases new single ‘I’m Lucy Lawless’
Alphabethead is the musical project of David Morrison (he/him), a producer and turntablist based in Whanganui.
At any point in time Alphabethead finds himself adrift in the musical cosmos, somewhere between the constellations of Hip Hop, Electronica and Experimental Rock. At the age of 18 Morrison won the 2002 New Zealand DMC DJ Championship and this title sent him performing across the globe. In the next twenty years he would go on to make six albums as Alphabethead, five albums as one third of cult genre-shredders The All Seeing Hand and two records as half of the psychedelic Hip Hop duo Bad Taste alongside Young Gho$t. Morrison also contributed production or turntable scratching for Home Brew, Tourettes, Benny Tones, Death & The Maiden, The Etymologists (featuring Richard Nunns and David Long (The Mutton Birds) and The Village Of The Idiots (a modern jazz ensemble led by Anthony Donaldson (The Front Lawn, Six Volts, Primitive Art Group)). His musical prowess has led to tours through Aotearoa, Australia, UK and China and performances at festivals like WOMAD, Splore, Laneway and Camp A Low Hum.
Now signed to Sunreturn, Alphabethead announces his first album of electronic music My Name Is David and shares first single I’m Lucy Lawless. The track is the first example of Alphabethead’s fresh process for creation starting with sound design and synthesis before finishing with turntablism and vinyl sampling.
STREAM ALPHABETHEAD – I’M LUCY LAWLESS
I’m Lucy Lawless is built around the classic Xena battle cry, which when pitched down warbles and shimmers. Alphabethead then experiments in synthesizing drum sounds to create a primordial clomping rhythm that feels like it’s being hammered out by assembly line machines. With a slight tempo shift Alphabethead recontextualizes the ululating vocal to urge the listener to find their inner Warrior Princess and to use it’s strength to view life as an adventure rather than an insurmountable obstacle.
“I’m constantly on the search for sounds with an ‘otherness’” says Morrison. “I’m looking for something with a quality that carries an emotional weight, a fascinating texture, or an intangible that makes it a portal to a bygone era or imaginary land. I know I’ve found something when my mind starts racing to build a new musical world for that sample to inhabit.”
“Like many children growing up in Aotearoa in the 90’s Xena Warrior Princess (TV3, Friday nights) was huge for me! It was the one weekly show my sister and I were allowed to watch and we were obsessed! We’d fashion Chakrams from cardboard and scream battlecries of our own as we’d zip them across the garden aiming to take the heads of Grandma’s roses. It’s such an empowering show and I always hoped to have a friend like Gabreille one day. So capturing some of that giddy action adventure was one of the intentions.
“For me, to proclaim I’m Lucy Lawless means; I feel alive and powerful and primed to face the world with the spirit of Warrior Princess!”
Photo Credit: Abby Stewart
