Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PAY UP YOU SEE BEFORE SEA
Local rocker Michael Mormecha follows in Duke Special’s footsteps by launching an album Kickstarter
Just over ten years ago, Duke Special caused a bit of a stir. Having released music on Universal Records and V2 - and headlined his own show open air gig at Belsonic - the renowned Belfast musician was kind of a big deal. Yet in 2011 he announced his new album was to be crowdfunded via a website called Pledgemusic. This meant his fans would be asked to pay for the album in advance or it wouldn’t be released. There was all sorts of other opportunities - he’d write a song for for you or play a show in your living room - for a certain amount of cash. At the time it felt quite unbecoming that this ‘big name’ was holding out what felt like a virtual begging bowl, singing for his supper.
Duke Special was - as it turns out something of a trailblazer. Within the last few years - crowdfunding has become a viable, valid way to release music and has been used by everyone from Pixies to De La Soul. It’s now understood how the musician retains control and can work at their own pace while the fans get to feel like they’re a special part of a project. Furthermore - anything that bypasses the corporate machine is deemed to be a force for good.
In 2021 - with the live music scene a distant memory and record companies less likely to invest than ever before crowdfunding is arguably the best perhaps even the only responsible way to finance new music. It allows our favourite local bands an opportunity to make a record without the risk of - you know - going broke.
So let me tell you about Michael Mormecha’s new album See Sea. First - a
quick history lesson. Michael is the lead singer with Mojo Fury - one of the finest straight up rock acts Northern Ireland has ever produced. Then, in 2016 he released Lofi Life - a deliberately unpredictable, impossible to pin down, sort-of-folk album on which the adventure was unlimited. He regularly plays live with Cormac Neeson and Amy Montgomery and is a hugely talented producer, working out of his own studio in Lisburn.
“I was living on a tiny boat for a year moored in the middle of Belfast before the pandemic” he explains on the Kickstarter page for this new record. It should be noted that living on a boat isn’t that weird for Michael - he’s a reliably and beautifully unusual human.
“The creative tap got turned on and i couldn’t stop. On this album I explore escapism, vegetables, religion, love, synthisizers and the good old head and heart wanting to go in opposite directions.”
It’s a convincing pitch. And - via the crowdfunding page (as I say - on this occasion it’s on Kickstarter) - you can buy the album in advance for a tenner. He later notes the record won’t be on streaming services, explaining the importance of this ‘artist friendly’ platform - alluding to how Spotify and the like tend to gobble up the lion’s share of any money generated. To the extent a track likely needs to be streamed over
3,000 times before the artist gets….one hour’s minimum wage. Take a moment to think about that, honestly. It’s just completely insane.
But hey - I need to get back on track. Regardless of the business model or industry politics - Michael Mormecha is exactly the type of creative talent we can rely on for interesting yet thoroughly entertaining music - so that’s a reason to buy this record. He’s also exactly the type of creative talent Northerrn Ireland would desperately miss should he be forced to ‘get a real job’. So that’s another reason.
After all, to quote the man direct - as he makes his final hard sell - “Art is everything. Its all we have.”