My Little Morties – Mr. Potato’s Circus For Autistic Children Pt 1
My Little Morties – Mr. Potato’s Circus For Autistic Children Pt 1 – EP Review
Brace yourselves, for here we go again into the dark abyss of sound collage via the music of My Little Morties for the second time in less than a month. It was just earlier this year in June that we first heard the grating ideas that the Bart Has Autism EP had to offer…and apparently that autistic theme is continuing on here in the Mr. Potato’s Circus For Autistic Children Pt 1 EP. Ok then. We all gotta write about something and we’re all inspired by something…no limitations on what that might ever be, so here we are. With next to zero information online, it’s impossible to know just how serious My Little Morties is about…well…anything really; I’m still marveling at the fact that I’ve seen two album covers and a page at Bandcamp, all with different spellings of the actual project name. Your guess as to why that is, who would actually do that, or what’s really going on here in this bizarre on-the-spectrum oddity is as probably every bit as good as mine. I have no idea about any of that.
My Little Morties…what to say, what to say…”Nibbas With Guns” is definitely going to do its best to jump right onto your last nerve as quickly as it begins. I feel like I should know the underlying melody/song that’s being played underneath the electro-static filled madness and teeth-breaking frequencies…but I can’t place it. Honestly, whatever it is, I dig the tune. But like last time around with the Freddie Mercury sample used by My Little Morties on the Bart Has Autism EP, it’s hard to give this project the credit for something that’s clearly already worked in the past. Theoretically, whomever created that song, or any fan that loved it before, would argue that it’s being butchered beyond repair on “Nibbas With Guns” – but if you’re looking for a challenge, trying to dig for the melody underneath the unrelenting audio punishment being doled out by My Little Morties, then right on, giddy-up & ride. The odds of the average everyday listener being able to get through even ten seconds of this opening tune are likely less than zero…even the adventurous are going to struggle with this for sure due to the intensity of the frequencies at work…it’s like flipping through the radio dial as you drive through a tunnel…or at least, like it was back in the days before my beard went grey…I suppose reception is better now out there. Couldn’t tell ya…I don’t listen to the radio…I end up listening to things like My Little Morties and obviously, everything else under the sun if I can rock Mr. Potato’s Circus For Autistic Children Pt 1. Lucky me? You decide. Life is as unique as we allow it to become – my world wouldn’t quite be the same without something strange as fuck blaring through these speakers every so often.
And then “Milo Vs Pajamas” – aka, that moment when you literally have no idea if you’ve just experienced the best compliment ever, or are being entirely trolled. I have to admit…I’ve never heard anyone out there do this before…and I couldn’t tell you wtf the title is all about…but I can tell you that I recognized the words immediately…because they’re my own. Who knew I was collaborating with My Little Morties this year? I know I sure as hell didn’t! I’m also assuming my royalty check is in the mail. How truly & sincerely odd “Milo Vs Pajamas” is to experience…I’m not even quite sure what to say. My Little Morties has used the first couple paragraphs or so from the past review on Bart Has Autism and put it into a digitalized speak-n-spell of sorts with a slightly like, what is that – Scottish accent? In any event, obviously the words are brilliant. It’s completely weird to hear them played back to me like this, but the more chilled out beat at least makes the experience more palatable…if you dig spoken word, hey, why not listen to this? For people that aren’t me…I still think there’s some appeal here…a track like “Milo Vs Pajamas” isn’t going to end up on the radio anytime soon, but it’s still interesting to listen to.
Things get cut dramatically shorter in length from this point on, with the final two tracks weighing-in at less than two-minutes combined. “Peppa’s Ribs Sqack” starts weird & stays weird, taking about fifteen of its fifty-four seconds to wander into a bizarre intro before unleashing the rage & fury of the remaining time left. Once it gets going, I kinda actually dig this crazy psychedelic freakout that’s going on here – but we’re talking like less than an orgasm’s length of enjoyment here…this track spurts out fast and then rolls over to instantly fall asleep. Even at fifty-four seconds, those last four seconds are silent…so we’re talking shorter-than-short tunes…but hey, I know a dude who played an opening set that was only thirty-six seconds long…believe it or not, there’s still an audience out there somewhere for stuff like this. “Peppa’s Ribs Sqack” – I suppose maybe my favorite of the bunch even though it’s the shortest tune on the EP…or maybe my favorite because of that…whatever it is, it’s such a strangely muted fury that it’s like demons are being conjured up behind your couch while you sit there and watch MTV.
If you’re an ancient as me and you’ve heard the sound of a cassette tape rewinding, then you’ve basically heard “Bebba’s Big Fucking Cock” in some way, shape, or form. It’s impossible to know what really goes into making something like this…it could literally be as simple as a single setting or a specialized filter, to as complex as painstakingly putting every sound & frequency in its place. I don’t know that we’ve had the evidence to support much time being taken in the music of My Little Morties – so there’s likely a good chance that these short ideas get ‘the treatment’ of the day, whatever the magic setting or button may be, and a new track is born, no matter what it may sound like. I can listen to “Bebba’s Big Fucking Cock” and ultimately appreciate it for how different it is than anything else going on out there…but I can certainly question why & wtf while I listen as well. Hard to say how a track like “Bebba’s Big Fucking Cock” gets made all-in-all…but if you were to go through my catalog of recorded tunes, you’d find a ton of stuff that’s just about equally heinous as this cut is…we all gotta start somewhere and consistently test the fence. Or pee on the electric one, as the case may be. Do I listen to those old records I made with this kinda stuff on it now? Hell no – of course not! Will My Little Morties be bumping this record in a week or two’s time? No – of course not! It’s a preserved moment in time…whatever it is, whatever it symbolizes, whatever it means, we’ll never really know…but this isn’t a project that’s making music to be listened to so much as it is to trip us out once or twice and create a memorable experience you couldn’t possibly forget…and in that sense, you gotta hand it to My Little Morties for a solid mission accomplished, pass or fail.
Listen to My Little Morties at Bandcamp: https://mylittlemortes.bandcamp.com
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