After it’s official release last week, we now bring you clips and a full review of Morris Cowan’s stunning debut ‘Circa’. An album of modern, dance floor orientated electronica and comes with a full 100% Fat! Club backing. Buy the album from Beatport or Juno.

The review below was written by one of our contributors and we are on the look out for more! If you are passionate about dance music and want to write about it please see here.

Morris Cowan – Circa by morris cowan

Last year German imprint Traum announced that Zaubernuss would be the latest sub-label to appear under its umbrella, with the aim of providing a more ‘emotive and expressive’ offering than its siblings. Around the same time Manchester based producer Taylor was attracting attention for his richly harmonic tunes, leading to the superb CMB which was released on Super at the end of last year.

Having changed his name to Morris Cowan, he began 2011 by featuring on the first Super compilation and dropping a couple of remixes for Traum, impressing enough in the process to earn his first full length on Zaubernuss.

Only the second release for the label, Circa is a perfect example of the expressive electronic music they promised. Artistically seductive with heaps of quality, there is a notion of storytelling imbedded in Cowan’s music that elevates it to another level and marks him down as a talent with an exciting future.

He may not draw on the most diverse palette of sonic elements in his compositions, but what he does use, he combines to make wonderfully sensuous textures that make up the heart of this record. Growing in sophistication all the time, Cowan continues from the signature style of his previous work and develops the little magical touches into more expansive, intriguing movements that entice you into his world and carry you away.

Opening track Cavern Jive gives a nice introduction to the journey, a 4/4 rhythm keeping pace as fidgety analogue inflections work into a typically enchanting arrangement of melodies, pads and synth manipulation, the subtle build of energy creating a sense that you’re awakening to a new world. Hasten Chimera then takes the story forward, the beat continuing over ambient beds as the melody looks around the place, before the beat steadily becomes more excited and pushes the track higher on to the next plain.

A particular highlight comes in Sunnyville, where a throbbing bed pierced by snapping clicks creates a more intense intro, slowly added to by fizzing analogue pulses and a simple tonal melody, all of which work together to gradually build tension before releasing into the next phase of the track. Here there is a brief plateau before the intensity starts to build again, the detailed manipulation of flickering pieces giving way to a euphoric build of rising pads that would put most trance producers to shame, the track then easing off before getting too self-indulgent and returning back to earth.

Desire Lane gives a lower-key harmony of blips and keys, showing Cowan’s mastery of beat and melody in its most stripped down form. Magnetor then gets somewhat heavier; industrial whirrings initially play off each other in a slightly colder vibe, but after the beat kicks in that familiar, intriguing texture effortlessly takes over, only this time underpinned by a slightly darker atmosphere that eventually leads to a low end thump that marks the albums heaviest dose of bass.

The only track under 7 minutes, Flutterby closes the album with a quietly considered track built upon the crisp beat and melodic dexterity that runs throughout, although without some of the dramatics found elsewhere.

The only real criticism of Circa would be a lack of variety across the album, and some will complain this results in a less dynamic experience for the listener. However, while this may be a problem on the surface, listen a little closer and the complexity of touches used by Cowan clearly affects a range of different atmospheres over the record, and it is his well defined artistic vision that informs the masterful manipulation and attention to detail that makes his work so interesting.

Uniquely expressive and richly enchantingly, if you like quality music then check this out.

Rob McCorquodale