Morning Venom, by Emlyn Johnson

Morning Venom

by Emlyn Johnson

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1.	Proper Flat 03:50	buy track
2.	The Old Woman And Her Pig 05:58	buy track
3.	Cormorant 04:26	buy track
4.	Toadies and Tricksters 05:48	buy track
5.	Scrublot Banksia 03:36	buy track
6.	Deakin's Blues 03:19	buy track
7.	King Of The Sand 03:13	buy track

about

WA folk weirdo Emlyn Johnson is back in 2019 with LP Morning Venom. Returning to the acoustic guitar, floor tom and snare arrangement employed in 2015's Quendlandian, Johnson describes Morning Venom as 'hip-hop album'.
'It's influenced by the dance and hip-hop my housemates were listening to, and the name comes from one housemate's breakfast rants that got nicknamed 'Morning Venom',' he says.
In opener "Proper Flat" Johnson delivers spoken-word observation about the surroundings on a train trip from Midland to the Avon Valley. There are 'stands of bamboo out the back of the new estate Walga Downs' and 'a kind of melon growing by the hundreds'. The vocals sit on top of a discordant to major chord change and a minimal, hip-hop like beat.
"Proper Flat" is followed by 150 bpm lo-fi dark dance banger "The Old Woman And Her Pig". This epic track sees a nursery rhyme Johnson came across in Kangaroo, D.H. Lawrence's 1923 novel about Australia, turned into an oddball dance sensation. A childlike wordgame story is sung over the top of a primitive floor tom and snare rim beat.
Track 4 "Toadies and Tricksters" is a live recording from Adelaide's The Metro with drum accompaniment provided by Harry Freeman (The High Beamers). This verbose track is taken from Johnsons's collection of songs related to W.A Chief Engineer C.Y. O'Connor and Fremantle's history in the 1890s and 1900s. The lyrics in the song are borrowed and adapted from a 1902 Sunday Times newspaper article lambasting O'Connor in relation to the Goldfields Pipeline Scheme as "toadie... trickster... crocodile imposter".
Track 6 "Deakin's Blues" is the third song on the album with lyrics borrowed from an historical source, in this case the diaries of Alfred Deakin. Johnson read Deakin's depressed self reflections in Judith Brett's The Enigmatic Mr Deakin and adapted them to a sad country song.
Unlike the 8 originals 2017's Contested Mark, Morning Venom has an even spread of adapted lyrics and self-composed lyrics - 3 of each. The final track "King of the Sand" is an instrumental, and closes the album out at a nippy 30 and a bit minutes, with acoustic guitar shredding in a dancey, latiny, jam.

credits

released April 1, 2019

Emlyn Johnson: drums, vocals, guitar, recording
Sean Gorman: mixing, keyboard, computer drums, vocal effects
Shiny Joe Ryan: mastering
Roarshark: art design
Liam Dee: portrait
"Toadies And Tricksters" was recorded live at The Metro in Adelaide by Pat Lockwood. Harry Freeman played drums on this track

license

about

Emlyn Johnson Fremantle, Australia

discography

Nullarbor Mulch

Apr 2022
And Beep Test

Nov 2021
Skakes

Jul 2020
Morning Venom

Apr 2019
Contested Mark

Oct 2017
folk prison

Jun 2016
quendlandian

Jun 2015

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