Morel Discography

MOREL - 2005
 Recording artist , remixer and live performer Richard Morel (aka Morel) continues to make quite a stir in the music scene.

On the band's new album "Lucky Strike" ( 10-19-04), Morel once again pushes the limits of just what electro-pop can be. Taking the best elements of both, he conjures up seductive lounge exhales and breakneck kick drum chases that never isolate the heads’ need to bang or the asses longing to shake. "Lucky Strike" is at once a continuation of the 2002 debut Queen of the Highway (which spawned the three hit club singles “Cabaret,” “True” and “Funny Car”) as a dramatic leap forward for his unique style of progressive house music.


"There's definitely more of a band (guitarist John Allen, drummer Rob Black, bassist Pat Flood and percussionist/vocalist Dwayne Tyree) feel on some of these tracks," explains Morel. "On this one I wanted to make the rock more rock and the disco more disco." Almost every track on Lucky Strike is a constantly morphing chameleon.


A cut like "Cheerful," with its caroming bi-polar disorder, drags the listener through string interludes and sly piano breakdowns before shoving them through the final few minutes with a propulsive snare. There's even two versions of the song "I'll Do What I Can Not To Touch You"--one an almost dirge-like dirty soul song; the other a percolating dance floor lament. And for those hard-core Morel fans, the airy vocal and guitar part driven “Escape (Driving To Heaven)” his dance-floor masterpiece with 16B that originally appeared on Deep Dish’s Global Underground #021: Moscow emerges again on Lucky Strike and is also making waves in Mitsubishi’s current TV ad campaign in Europe.


More importantly--and more groundbreaking in the realm of dance music--people are actually listening to the words ducking and diving between the pounding beats. "People come up to me and say they love my lyrics," he says with a laugh, "Then they proceed to quote something that's not at all what I said, but I wish I'd had."

“Queen of the Highway” (Morel's first Yoshitoshi release) produced three hit club singles “ Cabaret,” “True,” and “Funny Car,” which went to #4 on the Billboard Club Play Chart and included a remix by Hydrogen Rockers aka Grammy Award Winning act Dirty Vegas. The album was nominated as the “Best New Artist Album” at the 2003 Dancestar awards.

As a high-profile fixture of the electronica underworld, Morel has collaborated with Deep Dish and remixed Depeche Mode, New Order and The Pretenders. His work with Deep Dish has included mixing and engineering credits to their Grammy Award-winning remix of Dido’s “Thank You”, co-writing, singing and performing on their debut critically acclaimed album Junk Science as well as singing and co-writing three new songs for their upcoming 2005 release. In addition to all this Morel has also formed a duo with punk rock pioneer Bob Mould (Husker Du / Sugar/Loud Bomb.), called Blowoff . Blowoff throws a weekly underground DJ party at D.C’s 9:30 club and will be releasing their debut cd early next year.

As a remixer, Richard (as “ Pink Noise”) has also established himself as a perennial force in dance music with his spirited remixes that combine deep and progressive house rhythms .

He recently (2-10-05) scored his fourth #1 Billboard Club Play Chart single with his remix of Seal's "Killer" (Warner Brothers Records) . His other number one singles are Depeche Mode’s “Dream On” (Mute / Warner Bros. / Reprise) and The Collaboration’s (Peter Rahufer + the Petshop Boys) “Break 4 Love” (Star 69 Records) and t.A.T.u "Not Gonna Get Us (Universal Records)" .




2001 Morel Bio