ISSUE 1 December 2023
WORDS Niall Roche
PHOTOGRAPHY
Morgan Huggins
TUNE INTO NATURE WITH DJ & PRODUCER, MORGAN HUGGINS
small piece of background and context as to how this piece came about to set the table here before we delve into the main course. During my extended stay in Australia this ear, I stumbled upon the sadly now defunct — ‘Somewhere Else Records’ the c neighbourhood of Newtown during a weekend trip to ydney.
a stroke of luck, I found myself alone the store, striking up a conversa on with the friendly guy behind the counter. We cha ed about Sydney’s nightlife, good places to eat and drink, he even invited me to a party they were rowing the following weekend. Pleasantries complete, I dove into the cord bins.
asked for some local label ons, and within minutes, had fat stack of records sat in front me. You know how it goes—some
hits, some misses, and many more right on the money
There was one record in cular which really stood out to me however. “An Ode to Glebe’’ by one Morgan Huggins. It just clicked with me— emo onal yet danceable, euphoric yet melancholy. Morgan aptly described the genre as ‘crying on the dance floor,’ and I that perfectly encapsulates the sound and how I felt about his music.
My genuine love for Morgan’s work prompted me to shoot him a message, and that subsequent message blossomed into into the piece you’re about to read. Morgan’s intro ve responses not only echo some of own my life sen ments but also align seamlessly with the ethos of Pamama Sports. I thoroughly hope you enjoy reading his though ulm ul and considered responses as much as I did.
A sense of place & your immediate surroundings is clearly something that’s important to you with ‘Anzac Bridge Filter’ & ‘Ode to Glebe’ two obvious examples of this. With that in mind how do you think your immediate environment has shaped your musical taste / career so far?
I spend a lot of me walking around, looking at things that I find beau ful and soaking up the world. When I think back to certain songs that I’ve made, my mind immediately goes to the places I was when I wrote them - there is an unbreakable link, even if a song was made in many places, I can remember where I was when I wrote the first idea, the library I was ng in when I made a breakthrough er a couple stagnant weeks, the smells in the air when I did a cular field recording. It’s all mixed up, all the senses form one big memory soup.
My imperfect music was not en in a vacuum, it was en in many places, and you can probably hear that in the songs I’ve put out. With that said, Anzac Bridge Filter was en during a really or ma ve period for me, in a big sprawling share house in Glebe that used to be a hostel. Ode to Glebe was w en as I realised I was moving out of this magical, onal house and n a new chapter of my life.
I read that you created Anzac Bridge Filter whilst solo travelling down Australia’s East Coast in 2020, often utilising small town libraries as impromptu studio spaces. How did that trip affect the creative process and the eventual end product?
Most of the songs on that EP were “ en” in my bedroom studio in Glebe - that’s where I had all my synths are gear set up. With that said, recording ideas and finishing a song are two nct processes for me. One is all raw crea vity and experimenta on and one is more like finishing a puzzle that has no clear ending. It’s a process that gets more complex the more emo onally invested you get in a song The more mes you listen to something, the more ‘set’ it seems and you inevitably get bored of it
Around this me I got my first car and started going out into the world - driving and camping and exploring. At this point the ba ery on my laptop was pr y knackered, so the only places I was able to work was in loud cafes and quiet libraries. ally it was out of necessity, but I quickly grew to love the wacky different libraries and the hilarious librarians (who were en
Being out of my comfort zone, experiencing all these new places and ge ng amongst it on the south coast gave me a fresh ve on things and I was able to overcome a few big hurdles on each of the songs and ‘finish’ music for the first me. Also it was just nice to be inside because everything was on fire at the me.
“I can remember where I was when I wrote the first idea, the library I was sitting in when I made a breakthrough after a couple of stagnant weeks, the smells in the air when I did a particular field recording”
This obviously occured against the backdrop of the unprecendeted Australian bush fires of 2020. What overall impact did that have on you as a first hand witness to the devastation it caused?
The effect the fires had is really hard to put into words. When most people interact with this country, they are driving through it on roads and highways - you can only see so far off the roads and you don’t really get an idea of how much land was devastated.
Maybe since I was going a bitdeeper and trying to find spots off the beaten trail, I got a be er idea of just how expansive the burning was. I also had a couple too close for comfort moments with fires coming back through places that had already burned which definitely had an impact on me. The thing that stuck with me the most was definitely how resilient and wonderful people can be in hard mes. I remember going through Batemans Bay a few days a er they really copped it. I was walking down a street right next to the water and maybe one in four houses had burned down - despite this people were out walking their dogs and talking to each other and suppor ng each other
“Everywhere I went, there was a kindness in the air that I had never experienced before.”
presence over an extended
Observing your social media period, it’s evident that you have a deep passion for immersing yourself in nature. Additionally, it seems that you occasionally bring your studio equipment along during these journeys. I’m curious to know if this is a regular practice for you and what specific benefits or inspirations you derive from integrating your musicmaking process with the natrual enviornment?
From late 2020 to earlier this year (2023) I was travelling Australia in my car, trying to get closer to the world and further away from all the things that weigh me down.
“Apart from a couple of things I have stored with my parents, every musical tool I own comes with me wherever I drive”
I now have a solar panel and a ba ery (and the grand luxury of a fridge) so I can live off the grid wherever the heck I want to (provided the sun is shining on my solar panel, something La Niña really messed with for me). If I do a big shop and load up on water I can do about two weeks before I need to go back into the world. I have been fortunate to discover some beau ful, isolated places where you can go undisturbed.
“Living in nature like that, letting yourself just experience the world, not always being stimulated & leaving the room for thoughts to run free & boredom to blossom is profoundly inspiring”
You learn the rhythm of where you are - what me the birds rise, the sounds of the different insects - animals start visi ng you (I’ve had echidnas, koalas, goannas and foxes walk right past me er I’ve been somewhere for a while).
One day I will share what I learn out there with the world, but for now it feels more lik cing an instrument.
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On that topic, is there a particular location or setting in Australia you’ve always dreamed of playing or bringing your sound to?
Absolutely ll haven’t explored the top end. I need to experience the Kimberley’s (the northern part of WA where it meets the NT) and far north Queensland. I’m a bit nervous going that far up because of Crocodiles and Irukandji but I know I need to experience it.
“Being out there clears my brain, makes me feel unstuck and more human”
Music comes a lot easier, but it can also feel absurd to be in a beau ful place and be staring at your laptop screen. That’s why I like using hardware more when I am out there. You are playing instruments and feeling it out. It’s also really important to turn off your speakers/take off your headphones every now and then and bask in the big quiet. I find that I won’t do big marathon laptop sessions fuelled by intense hyperfocus when I am out there, but domore machine based jams that en wont go any further - they are just for me in that moment.
I am really lucky because my work takes me to a lot of wonderful places in the central desert - par cularly indigenous es around Alice Springs. I’m gonna be doing a work trip up to the Kimberley’s early next year which I will treat at reconnaissance for the next me I am funemployed. In the mean me, I am living in an Aboriginal community called Yuendumu in the Southern Tanami Desert.
“I am extremely fortunate to work with a lot of traditional owners who have shown me some really special places, shared dreaming stories & songlines & permitted me to camp in some of these places by myself”
Once the mercury stops hi ng 40+ every day next year I intend to get back out there e and soak it up.
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Can you tell us a bit more about your Lovejoy Label which you co-founded? How it began, where the inspiration came from and how you would describe the Lovejoy sound?
Lovejoy started as a party with one of my best friends, Jack Colquhoun (aka Lois Havana). We had been throwing park raves with a close group of friends for a li le while and wanted to take it a bit further, somewhere we could put more effort into and actually pay sts to play at. We had no idea what we were doing, we just wanted to throw an event where our friends could come and experience all the music we were obsessed with. Since our first party all those years ago, we have been able to curate some really special moments and connect with some of our absolute fav sts.
The Lovejoy sound has changed a bit over the years. Earlier on it had a euphoric housey /t which hear a lot in the has gone forward isten to has go en ess focused on a towards es you’ve always range of music, so cus on a specific ching flavour which inter ng and thats full of feeling.
What’s next on the horizon for you and Lovejoy? When can we expect your next release and what can we expect from it?