Playlist: Justin Morris

What’s the best music video you’ve seen recently and why?

It’s an older video but I recently came across Lorn - Acid Rain. 

Something about the movements in the choreography mixed with the way it’s shot just works with the slow attack of the synths and disorienting flow of the song.

What’s the first music video you remember being impressed by?

I was born in the early 1980s, so that entire decade of music videos left an everlasting impression. So I’m going with a video that really inspired an interest in heavier music, Tool - Sober.

I hadn’t really seen dark imagery like this before. Then combining these visuals with toy-like figurines and stop animation; it was just all the right things for a 12-year-old. I think I originally saw this on The Box, where you’d call in and request a video, probably upped the weirdness factor for me.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

I often go back to MGMT - Cool Song No. 2. With the passing of Michael K. Williams, this video feels even more like a gift than ever. 

His character is stalking the city in this wild looking Datsun Z, going to any length to find a cure for his partner. The tone is very Omar from The Wire on psychotropics, and I love it. It’s a work that made me want to reconsider how I originally heard the band’s music as well.

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspiration?

Is A24 too broad of an answer?

What are you listening to at the moment?

Rosalía’s Motomami is the first album in a while that had me reach out to friends and say, “please stop what you are doing and listen to this album.” From the opening track I was hooked on the production and her delivery. Without knowing anything about her, it sounds personal.

I’m also just starting to scratch the surface of Mitski’s new album, Laurel Hell. 

Finally, The Ray Bryant Trio’s self-titled album from 1957 is on repeat when I’m driving. This is a great fix for post holidays’ Vince Guaraldi Trio.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

The Revolution 2×2 from Black Lion Audio has brought a lot of joy back into recording for me.

When I started downsizing gear and going through several different interfaces for a laptop, recordings were feeling underwhelming, and the stereo field was small. This has changed all of that, and it’s a solid box for sure.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

At the studio, I’ve got a team of composers I love. They’re all prolific and artists in their own right. We work well together and compose on different jobs - they just never fail to inspire. 

So perhaps if we all teamed up with someone like Junkie XL, Oneohtrix Point Never, Gillian Gilbert, Frank Dukes - an artist in a composing-to-picture environment where maybe their first instincts aren’t to even open up a DAW, but just to sit with imagery and a classic synth and hammer out that first sound. My mind would melt.

How do you feel the advertising industry has changed since you started in it?

A standout for me is watching how we value music used on the internet. It’s gone from high prices to lower/dirt cheap, then seems to be on its way back up again. TikTok feels like the wild west, so maybe that’s an outlier. But as someone that gets most of their media through streaming, giving the most value to internet usage makes the most sense to me, and I hope musicians can benefit from this even more.