!This issue is now SOLD OUT!
morc zine is a publication by morc records -
first issue = morc 32-a
20 pages, a5-size
contact:
Morc c/o Wim Lecluyse
2e Oosterstraat 15
1211 LG Hilversum
The Netherlands / Europe
It is always good to contact me via e-mailbefore sending something. My e-mail adress:[email protected]
For readers of the Swedish magazine ‘The broken face’, the editorial of number 18 opened very surpring. ‘Welcome to the final instalment’, wrote editor Mats Gustafsson. For over six years, his zine had been the guide for people interested in most sorts of ‘out-there’ drones, avant-garde and folk. Mats was kind enough to answer a few questions
> - Can you tell something more about the reasons why you've quit the Broken Face?
A combination of things but the most important one was the time aspect. As the mag continued to grow both in terms of circulation and content the workload on my shoulders continued to get heavier and heavier despite the fact that the last few issues saw a few new contributors doing one hell of a job. Having a full-time job, family, house (which we have rebuilt completely) etc. and doing the ‘zine on the side is simply an impossible equation in the long run, and something just had to give eventually. During the last year I started to feel that I had to sacrifice a few things too many in order to keep on doing the ‘Face. I don’t think most people have any idea of how much work it is but don’t get me wrong…I loved doing it but there are just too many other things on the schedule to fit them all. Another reason that not is as evident but still something I’ve been thinking about is the challenge in doing the ‘Face. It feels like the mag had found its form so to speak and I am not quite sure how one could have continued to develop within the financial means I had at hand. Or maybe it’s just as a friend of mine said: "All good things must come to and end in order to leave space for new exciting projects". I am happy to see that pretty much all of our regular contributors are writing for other mags these days and in some cases even are starting new ‘zines. The readers who are interested are likely to find my name and some fellow BF contributors’ both in the printed press as well as on the web.
> - What can we expect from you in the future? a webzine? contributing to other zines?
I am just too passionate about music and music writing to quit with this entirely. I will continue to write for publications such as Dream Magazine, Terrascope, Foxy Digitalis, Dusted and right now I am getting a involved with a new ‘zine here in Sweden. The interviews I have been working on lately include Jack Rose, The Lost Domain, Kemialliset Ystävät, Eclipse Records, The Spacious Mind and a few other things. I have also started a blog). I guess this is the time when I should have this grand master plan regarding what I’d like to write about on this blog, and maybe I do but that’ll be my secret for a little longer. I’ll just settle with saying that I’m going to write about the stuff that I care about, things that can stir the soul and open the mind, and in some cases just flat-out blow me away. In many cases that means the world of peripheral sounds and music on the fringe but it's really as likely that I write about current happenings in my neck of the woods. I am also toying with the idea to re-activate the Broken Face label. We’ll see what happens.
> - George Parsons of Dream Magazine did a lot of illustrations for the Broken Face. How did you work together? Did you give him orders to make a
> design?
George and me have worked very closely ever since he stepped on the Broken Face ship, which should have been around issue #10 if my memory serves me. He’s almost been as much of a spiritual guide as he’s been one hell of a visual contributor to the actual mag. The thing I used to do when a new issue was starting to line up was to ask myself which groups or artists that I think would suite George’s drawing style. Then I’d present the idea to him and we were off. It was always very much up to George to decide what to do, even though I sometimes gave him vague keywords like “abstract”. George said something like this in a recent interview: “Music most of all pushes my brush around the canvas, painting to Albert Ayler is how life should always be. Which is why doing illos for The Broken Face was always so easy; I'd just slap on whoever Mats were covering and blank out my mind and draw. No work at all.”
> - You never put a lot of photographs in the Broken Face. Do you prefer the graphic aspect of a drawing, or does it just have to do with the printing
> process?
Ideally I would have liked to have some more photographs as I really enjoy the contrasts of having both side by side. But the kind of printing/photo copying I did with the Broken Face wasn’t really suited for all kinds of photos so that was definitely a part of why I chose to primarily work with drawings .
> - Any idea of how many records you reviewed throughout the years? And what do you do with all those records?
I am not only speaking for myself here but also for the other contributors…a very rough approximation would be that we wrote somewhere between 2000 and 2500 reviews. As far as what I do with all the records…to the annoyance of the rest of my family I keep most of them. I’ve given some away to people who might like them more than I do but it in 90% of the cases I’d say that the CDs, LPs, 7”s, CD-Rs, cassettes, lathes that have been sent in my direction still can be found in my collection.
> - How do you keep up? I mean, you reviewed such a bunch of records, do you have the time to listen to music that wasn’t related with the upcoming issue of the face? (I always imagined this being the worst part of running a zine)
For someone who genuinely loves peripheral sounds and underground music it’s wonderful to find new music in the mailbox every single day. Sure, there is indeed the “too much music, too little time” aspect but when it all comes down to it that’s really a luxury problem for a music nerd. Sometimes it gets overwhelming though, like the week about 50 CDs turned up in one shot. As far as listening to music that wasn’t related with the upcoming issue of the ‘Face I have to say that it wasn’t really too much of that. The time I had for music listening was primarily spent with new music, so there was rarely time to listen to old favorite records. I am re-exploring my record collection these days…
> - I suppose you didn’t review everything you received in the first place? Anything you'd like to share about the 'less' suited records you received?
We didn’t review everything that was sent to us, but to tell you the truth we tried to scribble down a few words about as many releases as we possibly could. If we heard some sort of qualities in the music we would always try to write about it. That was the initial idea and vision that we tried to follow as much as possible all the way to the not so bitter end. But if the music was too much outside our field or simply didn’t appeal to us we would rather not write about it at all than to write a negative review. I just can’t see the point with writing down an album, which was pressed in an edition of hundreds. Generally speaking I’d say that pretty much all music that was sent to us was worthwhile in one way or the other. But there are of course exceptions which verifies the rule, like the cheesy Italian singer (the name escapes me right now) which made Eros Ramazotti sound sonically adventurous and interesting…it was actually so incredibly bad that it was pretty entertaining.
> - It’s a few months now since the demise of the broken face. What do you miss the most for now?
I know that I miss parts of it but it’s still difficult to point out exactly what it is that I am missing. I guess you could say that I miss the most fun aspects of running a ’zine which are so many that I am not even sure where to begin. There’s the getting positive feedback part, people saying things that would make the most self-confident blush, but there is also this whole thing with connecting with other people who care about the same things as yourself. Getting new friends, who are as geeky as me and happily can spend hours writing e-mails about what music it is that currently blow them away. I truly hope (and think) that many of these friends will remain long after the ‘Face is gone. But given all this nothing really beats the feeling of holding a new issue in your hands. Checking it out for the first time, realizing that the image that you thought might be a bit too dark worked out after all or just being impressed by the number of reviews we managed to get done in time. I still remember these times fondly, the blend of excitement, satisfaction and anxiety that everything worked out as expected
Mats’ weblog can be found at http://thebrokenface.blogspot.com/ - pictures are taken from various issues of the broken face