Toby Dammit Morphosa Harmonia

The announcement of the relaunch of the German label Hit Thing (marketed by GRAND CHESS) comes with some anticipation regarding some of the rare titles they released from 2000-2007. At the starting gate is MORPHOSA HARMONIA, the duet album between Thomas Wydler, longtime drummer-alumni of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Die Haut, and Toby Dammit, also known as Larry Mullins, who has since joined the Bad Seeds as well. MORPHOSA HARMONIA has a two-sided structure in almost every aspect of the project. Wydler and Toby combined their tastes, talents and humor on these 11 sketches. In 2002 Dammit arrived in Berlin somewhat empty handed and dazed at what to contribute, as Wydler had already designed much of the drumming and percussion landscapes. With considerable thought a radical chance had to be taken. Armed with a rare Buchla synthesizer, a vocal microphone and tape echo, Dammit asked Wydler to give him a chance to explore some strange ideas. Recording engineer Ingo Krauss kept the creative waters flowing without question and what resulted surprised them all. Large phonetic vocal choirs were built, sometimes beautiful, mysterious or a horrific nightmare. Each piece gained unique characters and themes. Thus a strange and visual musical world slowly appeared before them; the cinema of MORPHOSA HARMONIA. Later that week Wydler and Dammit attended a dinner at the home of German artist Martin Eder. As they explained their strange new project, Eder expressed interest in contributing the artwork. At that time Eder had completed a parallel series of beautiful watercolor portraits of both cats and women. Combining both side by side displayed varieties of a possible morphosis from feline to feminine, (or vice versa) and a mysterious yet complimentary layer came to their musical characters. It appeared to complete the cinematic world they had designed; thus a true harmonic morphosis exposed, balanced in music and painting, the strange characters of MORPHOSA HARMONIA.