Soirée: GLENN MORRISON

Soirée: GLENN MORRISON

Bar None Presents

Glenn Morisson (Toronto, ON)

www.glennmorrison.com
www.facebook.com/GlennMorrisonOfficial
www.soundcloud.com/glennmorrison
Twitter: @glennmorrison

Plus DJ Marvel


Glenn Morisson:

Multi-talented, multi-tasking, focused and ambitious, Glenn Morrison is the archetype of the modern DJ/producer star. The 26-year-old Toronto native is as happy rocking an underground house party as he is performing at an exclusive oceanic rooftop venue; as adept at composing an international club anthem like Contact as he is at concocting a creepy ambient soundtrack for a Nintendo game.

His name alone gets 1.7 million social networking and internet hits a month. His productions have featured on over 900 compilations in the last five years. He has enjoyed the support of DJs as varied as John Digweed and Richie Hawtin to David Guetta and Tiesto. For three years he was resident at the worlds best club, Ibizas Amnesia Club, and is currently a resident at Space in Ibiza, as well as Space in Miami.

His label Morrison Recordings has put out 118 releases and counting, his Sequence Radio podcast series gets 12,000 downloads a month and is broadcast on XM and Sirius Radio in North America, and most recently he signed to Sony Music ATV as a writer and producer. Hes produced and/or remixed for legendary bands & acts such as Queen, the Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Pharrell, Cher, and the B52s. And he is perfecting a sinuous, hooky sound that combines the eerie beauty of pure techno with light rains of melody and flashes of emotion.

In short, Glenn Morrison is one of the most dynamic and accomplished talents in electronic music today. Period.

But whether its producing music or playing it, versatility and passion are at the heart of what Glenn Morrison does. Above all its about connecting with the audience. I love being able to elicit emotion in people, he says.

Morrison is a difficult DJ to pigeonhole and thats what makes him such a fascinating talent. One minute his sound is ruthlessly minimal and funky; the next its washed in color and vocals and emotion.

I want to able to straddle the line between doing underground parties and underground records, and a more commercial style, he explains. Artists & musicians dont think in genres and label coding, and my music is a reflection of that.

Glenn has had an unusual career path. He started off as a classical pianist, a preteen prodigy, performing and winning competitions. Then came a life-changing encounter with electronic music.

When I was 14, I was at a high school house party, and there was somebody in the basement with two turntables and a mixer playing a Plastikman techno record, says Glenn. It was new, it was fresh, it was underground. It was something I had never heard before. And I embraced it in all of its forms.

He discovered classic mixes by DJs like Sasha and John Digweed on the Global Underground series, got lost in Adam Beyers Drumcode techno mixtapes, tripped out to Paul Oakenfolds Goa mixes and started buying records.

I started DJing during the vinyl period. I was buying a lot of records. It took me a couple of months, practicing in my parents house and it consumed my life, he says. Soon Morrison and his friends were staging their own house parties DJs in the basement, girls around the pool. By the time he was 17, he had talked himself into a job at Torontos Release Records both a store and an underground label. And that was it. I knew what I wanted to do.

When DJing offers started to come in, Glenn Morrison took them. He would play anywhere, sleeping on promoters floors in smaller cities in Brazil, Norway, China and Eastern Europe, soaking up the vibe. It was a great learning experience to play in the club; no one can teach you. And I wanted to completely saturate myself. And as a classical pianist, the move into production came naturally. He worked with fellow Canadian producer Deadmau5, then struck out alone. Everything changed in 2007 with the release of his hit Contact, an emotional, yet minimal trance record with shivers of delicious melody and a crisp, funky beat that left no dance-floor unturned. Tisto put it on a compilation and it shot to the top of the World Dance Charts.

No Sudden Moves followed: a driving, progressive house number with compulsively funky beats galvanized by shards of metallic melody. It too topped the World Dance Charts. Glenn Morrison had arrived. He studied law at the University of Toronto and had a place to study an MBA at Harvard. But post graduate education was going to have to wait.

As a DJ, Glenn Morrison is now a major draw on the world circuit. He has played over 400 events worldwide in the last four years and has developed into a consummate DJ performer. I love being able to play with peoples feelings, to build the night, he says. For me its about creating an experience. Starting at ten oclock and then building the intensity.

He is a relaxed, grounded character, driven to create. And he is as versatile a DJ as he is a producer. He will tease the crowd with minimalist deep house, throw them into raptures with his inventively twisted techno deconstruction of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody, then lighten the mood with a fluffier vocal number. When Im performing I feel great if others are overwhelmed by the show, he says. Its more than a party to me but an audio-visual marriage, synchronizing the beauty of electronic music with that of an advanced light show. Its not about the DJ as a DJ anymore but the DJ as a concert experience.

Fresh, contemporary DJ stars like Glenn Morrison know that making your own records is the way to stay in the game. And he continues to produce: recent tracks like the big room stadium sound Marquee or the lusciously emotional vocal number Mine and Yours capture feelings and paint pictures with sound.

Production continues apace in the new mastering studio Morrison has built in Toronto, entitled Alpine Mastering (www.alpinemastering.com). Be it sound design for video game companies like Nintendo, EA Sports, Activision or Rockstar, or his own productions for Sony Music, EMI, and Robbins Entertainment, he simply doesnt stop making and playing music. Its been a liberating transition for me to make music for all different stylistic purposes, and Im very grateful for having the ability to do what I love for a living says Glenn. And he looks everywhere for new influences.

Alpine Mastering is yet another animal borne out of Glenns desire to entrench himself deeper into the industries tentacles. It is a high end mastering studio with the finest audio gear on the planet, and he offers a tailor made boutique approach to bespoke records through his ghost writing services, all the way to mixing and mastering services for international clients and world renowned record labels.

I had the luxury to hear a preview of his track Love Lost, composed after a break-up with a girlfriend, and it is a tantalizing taster. It is an exquisite solo piano piece that sounds like the theme to a classy, romantic movie scene. Deceptively simple, without drums or electronic trickery, Love Lost is a glimpse of the creative ambition yet to be realized. Watch this brilliant artist over the course of 2013 as he will be reshaping and redefining how we perceive electronic music through an ample amount of live shows, performances, and recordings.

Dom Phillips, author of Superstar DJs Here We Go!



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