Spotlight On... Isa Gordon & Tony Morris

This week we’re delighted to be highlighting not one but two artists in our Spotlight, as Isa Gordon and Tony Morris gear up to release a beaut of a 12'' dance record together. Due for release via Huntleys + Palmers on 8 February, the unlikely pair were brought together following solo releases on Optimo, and the results are knockout; Gordon’s expressive guitar work, production and dynamic vocals beautifully complement septuagenarian Morris’s hypnotic beats and charming, poetic cabaret drawl.

It's been a dream of Morris' for years to release a 12'' dance record; the bright call and response of Wake Up Baby is joined by a remix from Auntie Flo on side A, while side B features the darker Syringe Moustache, with an almost collage-like cut and paste remix courtesy of 100% Positive Feedback.

The overall feeling is that these two unique talents have really stumbled upon something special here. With excitement swelling at what the future might hold for Isa Gordon and Tony Morris, and ahead of the record’s release and their launch party at The Doublet in Glasgow on Sunday 8 February, we catch up with them to find out more.

You were first brought together through individual releases on Optimo, which resulted in the two of you performing together at Queen's Park last year. Tony, I'd love to know what it was about Isa’s work that captured your attention and led to that particular collaboration?
Tony: I consider the electric guitar to be the most glamorous and theatrical of musical instruments. Conversely I consider the laptop to be the least glamorous and theatrical. I’ve only ever used a laptop but have secretly craved to share the stage with a lead electric guitarist. One afternoon Isa brought her electric guitar round to my house and while I lounged in an armchair she sauntered around the room jamming/improvising ‘on lead guitar’. It was wonderful. It was like having a private recital from Eric Clapton or Roy Buchanan and it was a eureka moment for me. I explained my obsession with the instrument and implored her to adorn my set at Queen's Park. I particularly liked the fact that Isa doesn’t resort to any of the clichéd rock-chick guitar postures but has her own set of distinctive Isa Gordon postures.

And Isa, what were your immediate thoughts when Tony invited you to join him?
Isa: I never get asked to shred for people so I was very up for it – honoured, even. I’m a fan of Tony’s production and poetry to boot. He had a concrete idea of what he wanted me to do; he sent me an audio file of the tracks he wanted me to play over, with him overdubbing instructions for what he wanted me to do and had his wife singing parts that he wanted me to sing – it is, in itself, a work of art. I liked having stage direction and a character profile, a nice change from solo performance.

What was that moment together on stage like? Tony, I noted in the press release that you “could never collaborate with anyone in situ” so how did you overcome that in a live setting?
Tony: I overcame it by ignoring it. In the videos of our Queen's Park set you’ll notice that I never look at Isa. She looks at me for signals and feedback because she is a musician and is used to interacting through body language with her fellow musicians. I’m more like a soldier on parade who is well rehearsed in the part he has to play in a platoon drill and just has to look icily ahead in order to execute the piece. I think it worked well like that: tense, unique.

Isa, in relation to that, when working on your parts for Wake Up, Tony left you to your own devices it would seem. I'd love to know more about that process and the work you did on the original song?
Isa: We met at Tony’s to beef up the tune after the gig. He’d reworked the opening into this country-tinged, 60s pop call-and-response which got the wheels in motion for the notion of the song. His beat already had a great arc with these glorious blank spaces to fill in. Cheeky retorts to his musings at the start unfolding into unfiltered rants by the end with some riffs and chorus along the way. A lot of daft takes, a lot of refining, a lot of bad rhyming trying to get the point across. After that session I went home and re-recorded my vocal parts, guitar and added some wee adornments to Tony’s and did the mixdown.

Your voices really work so wonderfully together, the interplay is just magic. Isa, I love how playful you are with your vocals and the different tones and dialects you sing in. How did you land on that idea?
Isa: The call-and-response at the start – and its tone – was already there in Tony’s writing, which gave me a clear jumping-off point. From there, I wanted the shifts in dialect to mirror how the character loosens up as the song progresses. It moves from something quite stylised and American-sounding into a much more direct, Scottish rant by the end, where there’s no attempt at poise. Using dialect felt like the clearest way of showing that emotional unravelling without over-explaining it.

I'd also like to ask about Syringe Moustache, which I find fascinating. Tony, it was inspired by a dream you had – what was it about that dream that stuck with you and made you want to turn it into a song?
Tony: Like all dreams it had an awesome hold over me, and I wanted to share it with the world. It was fuelled by two prosaic obsessions of mine: child-rearing in the face of child adversity; and my own timorousness. Should one mollycoddle children or should one use tough love to prepare them for the real world? I find the real world extremely daunting and I wonder if that’s because I was mollycoddled by my parents.

Image: Isa Gordon & Tony Morris still from Wake Up Baby music video by Martin Clark

And Isa, I believe that song resonated with you quite a lot when you first heard it. I'd love to know more about that and how that influenced your development of the song?
Isa: I really resonated with the little girl in the story. To me, the song feels like a metaphor for growing up around addiction – something that’s technically invisible but actually written all over a person. That connection made me want to support the narrative musically, giving it a backing that could carry the weight of the story as it unfolds.

Tony, the 12'' dance single is something you've long wanted to do and you say it's the most proud you've been of anything you've done. Why did it make you feel that way? I'd also love to know what you make of Auntie Flo and 100% Positive Feedback’s remixes of the two tracks?
Tony: Wake Up Baby. I love it. I love it. I love it. In my opinion it deserves a 12'' vinyl release. I can offer no further justification. As far as the remixes are concerned, I’ve always loved two features of Auntie Flo’s work: the first and most important is that he understands ‘the beat’. Anyone can produce ‘a beat’ but in my obsessive world what makes a great beat involves meeting standards measured in microseconds, i.e. too tiny to be described in words or notation; it’s all about feel. Auntie Flo understands that. Secondly, I love his sumptuous sound world. Laurie Pitt, aka 100% Positive Feedback, is a 100% off-piste phenomenon. One had no idea what he was going to produce with the remix but one knew it would be magnificent; and it is.

You're launching the record together at The Doublet next weekend – what can people expect on the night?
Isa: Flutes, drones, originals, covers and acoustic versions of what really should be electronic tunes. Interluding DJing by 100% Positive Feedback and Andrew Thompson [Huntleys + Palmers' label boss].

And what's next for the two of you?
Tony: I want us to do other stuff...

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Isa Gordon and Tony Morris release Wake Up Baby via Huntleys + Palmers on 8 Feb; the pair celebrate the record's release with a special launch show at The Doublet, Glasgow, 8 Feb; keep your ears peeled for Isa Gordon's forthcoming solo record, 8Men, due via Lost Map Records, 20 Mar

Follow Isa Gordon and Tony Morris on Instagram at @isa._gor and @tonymorrisssss