{"id":14493,"date":"2018-04-27T05:30:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14493"},"modified":"2018-04-23T08:58:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T12:58:58","slug":"the-mercurial-stephanie-morgan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/27\/the-mercurial-stephanie-morgan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mercurial Stephanie Morgan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stephanie Morgan is known as the voice and face of Stephanies\u01d0d. For some fifteen years, Morgan and her band played locally, toured, and released a series of albums. When the band folded in 2016, it wasn’t immediately clear what Morgan’s next musical move would be. But after quietly re-emerging in mid-2017 with a solo album, she put together two new groups: indie-pop band the Mercurists, and an improvisational alter ego, Pink Mercury. In celebration of her birthday, Morgan scheduled a March 3 show at the Mothlight in Asheville, fronting the Mercurists.<\/p>\n

It could sometimes take a few listens to latch onto the memorable melodies within Stephanies\u01d0d’s sophsticated, instrumentally complex style. And while Chyrsalism<\/i> isn’t exactly a musical u-turn, it’s more immediate than the music Morgan made previously. \u201cIt wasn’t an intentional thing,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I do think that life has phases in which certain things become more important to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songs on Chrysalism<\/i> began as Stephanies\u01d0d jam sessions, but by the time Morgan entered a Virginia studio with producer Matthew E. White and session musicians, the end was nearing for both Stephanies\u01d0d and Morgan’s marriage to band mate Chuck Lichtenberger. Morgan says she recorded the songs with the blessing of her ex-band mates. \u201cI decided that I really liked the theme of universal songs, anthemic tunes that could bring people together,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

With the benefit of hindsight, Morgan thinks that the Chrysalism<\/i> songs were, in fact, advising her. \u201cThat’s almost always the case with the songs I write,\u201d she says. \u201cI write them, and I think<\/i> I know what they mean at the time. But then much later, I’ll listen to them again and go, ‘So that’s<\/i> what I was getting at!’ Our inner wisdom comes out, whether we want it to or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Morgan released Chrysalism <\/i>without fanfare. The album had a \u201csoft\u201d release, and wasn’t distributed to reviewers. (I did review the album<\/a>.) There were only two live dates in support of it. \u201cI didn’t go big and national,\u201d Morgan says. \u201cI didn’t do radio promotion; I didn’t do any of that stuff. It was like, ‘I just need to be where I’m at right now.’\u201d The album’s title \u2013 describing a kind of amniotic tranquility \u2013 seems especially apt.<\/p>\n

A sense of optimism pervades the songs on Chrysalism<\/i>, even though Morgan’s personal circumstances at the time didn’t necessarily encourage that attitude. \u201cI did not expect some of the things that happened in my life to happen the way they did,\u201d she admits. But she realized \u2013 or perhaps just decided \u2013 that she had to forge ahead. \u201cThe best chance I’ve got at making the best possible stuff I can make,\u201d she says, \u201cis for me to just dive into exactly what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last several months, Stephanie Morgan has re-embraced the larger world, and is finding her place in it. She assembled the Mercurists from among well-known Asheville players: the band features bassist Ryan Reardon (of Les Amis), former Jon Stickley Trio drummer Patrick Armitage, Toubab Krewe guitarist Drew Heller, and keyboardist Rich Brownstein, formerly of the Broadcast. (For the Mothlight show, Merrick Noyes from Third Nature subbed on keys.) Zack Cardon (Midnight Snack) and Brie Capone provide backup vocals, while Morgan sings and plays both guitar and keyboards.<\/p>\n

Initially basing a repertoire around the Chrysalism<\/i> material, the Mercursts satisfy Morgan’s pop leanings. \u201cI love all kinds of music,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I really dig a good pop song. And until now, I’ve never fully unleashed my unabashed love for straight-up pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Morgan’s more experimental bent needs an outlet as well. For that, there’s Pink Mercury. In sharp contrast to the Mercurists’ carefully-constructed pop, Pink Mercury is completely improvisational. And there’s no set lineup. \u201cI have a group of go-to people,\u201d Morgan explains. \u201cThere’s a cadre of them, and they don’t all play on the same shows. It’s an expandable, collapsible group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The improvisational collective employs a guerilla approach, staging pop-up shows around Asheville in venues like 5 Walnut, Ben’s Tune Up, or even Static Age Records. \u201cWe can pop up anywhere, as long as there is good energy in the room,\u201d Morgan says.<\/p>\n

Pink Mercury is, by design, \u201cextremely collaborative. We have this ethic that if anybody in the band likes an idea, they can just run with it.\u201d And spontaneity is built-in: \u201cWe don’t rehearse,\u201d Morgan says.
\nBut even within the more conventional structure of a Mercurists show, Morgan embraces the unknown. The Mothlight event included her \u201cNight of Bravery\u201d exercise, in which pre-selected audience members get five minutes onstage to do…whatever. Providing something of a link with Morgan’s past, the exercise was sometimes a feature of Stephanies\u01d0d shows.<\/p>\n

Because of the individual Mercurists’ busy schedules, for now Morgan is writing songs for a Chrysalism<\/i> follow-up on her own. She describes the process: \u201cI feel like I’m looking up at clouds and trying to find pictures in them. And then suddenly I find something, and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s an elephant!’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Morgan is known as the voice and face of Stephanies\u01d0d. For some fifteen years, Morgan and her band played locally, toured, and released a series of albums. When the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[2823],"class_list":["post-14493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-stephanie-morgan","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14494,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493\/revisions\/14494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}