Gurf Morlix - Impossible Blue (2019)

Here’s a name y’all know……. Mr. Gurf Morlix, Record Producer Extraordinaire, but he’s also a famed songwriter and judging by this, his TENTH solo album…… a mighty fine singer too (and that’s all before I tell you he plays every bloody instrument here barring drums and the Hammond B3!).
Normally I would hate someone so talented; but with Gurf Morlix…… I just can’t get past the fact that I love him and his warm growl of a voice.
Opening song, the swirling and rocking Turpentine very nearly stopped my heart and it really did stop me breathing for 30 seconds while I was gripped listening to Morlix’s words on a very twisted love song.
Here’s the chorus……”Your kisses taste like turpentine!” Twisted love song? Hell yeah!
After all these years listening to music I still remain totally baffled as to why an album by a singer (in this case Gurf Morlix) can hit me so instantaneously, as if I’ve known the songs all my life, yet other albums which sound very similar either take time to capture my attention or pass me by altogether.
What is this witchcraft?
Like many of the people he works with, Morlix really is a Master-craftsman when it comes to creating a song, making really intelligent and thought provoking prose like Sliver of Light or Spinnin’ Planet Blues sound quite simple and even ‘easy on the ear,’ until you find yourself going “Oh!” and then taking the track back to the beginning and listening so intently you’d think you were discovering the meaning of life.
For a solo album Morlix can still Rock & Roll like a band; his self-depreciating tale of surviving a heart attack; My Heart Keeps Poundin’ will surely find its way onto forthcoming albums by some of our more feted Alt. Country bands who will see it as a single layered Love Song; when there is so much more hiding in the shadows of each groove.
Much like the other three Gurf Morlix albums I own, IMPOSSIBLE BLUE will come out occasionally but regularly over the years to come when the likes of I Saw You, with it’s spine of torrid jealousy spring to mind and only Gurf’s wise words will satisfy my cravings.
But then he also writes and delivers songs of the Alt. Noir variety that very few others can come close to; I’m a Ghost is a complete blockbuster wrapped up in 6 glorious minutes; and if I still had my radio show I would link it directly to Bottom of the Musquash River for the best/worst 11 minutes of radio you will ever hear in this lifetime.
I’ve only played this album three times before sitting here on a cold wintry Sunday morning and ‘I got it’ from the get go; but nothing prepared me for the final song here Backbeat of the Dispossessed. A very personal song to Gurf, as it’s for and about a close friend Michael Bannister who died recently; but such is the writer’s way with words this extraordinary song will mean something very personal to many people who will think of their own loved ones when they hear it.
And none of them are even close to being my Favourite Song!
That award goes to the sublime and intense 2 Hearts Beating In Time; a love song of a variety that has been written many times before but Morlix captures the unspoken words many of us feel; but can’t either let go or actually enunciate; but Gurf speaks for all of us.
It is still only February 3rd and this album is already a contender for the Year End Top 20 and should; but won’t be in the runners and riders for all of the Awards Ceremonies …… sad but true; but you and me will know how brilliant this man and his 10th Album actually is.