Scorn

There is little doubt that as the last decade of the 20th Century unfolds, so musical styles, stances and attitudes are merging, meshing together in a manner that is both provocative and challenging. Certainly over the last couple of years, the avantgarde awareness has risen, and the sheer art bravado of Scorn, this unique product from the mind of Mick Harris, has added a new dimension taking music into previously unchartered territories. Scorn is an amalgam of fresh technology and searing rhythms, processed through a dub perspective. It is unique and visionary, formed by one-time Napalm Death drummer Harris, and other ex-Napalmers Nik Bullen and Justin Broadrick. Harris' main focus was to 'create an even more extreme style of music', and the trio became 'a driving unit, three people delivering a powerful, hard sound with endless ideas available.'

First fruits of this ambitious approach came in early 1992 with the release of the challenging 'Vae Solis' album. It's accompanying single 'Lick Forever Dog', produced by John Wakelin at Rhythm Studios in Birmingham gained widespread acclaim, one reviewer heralding the band as 'an impressive structure of spontaneous sounds and primeval sonic gestures.' Building on this opening salvo, Scorn took to the road, presenting a uniquely charged show to an audience perhaps more used to traditional fare. With Candiru guitarist Pat McCahan replacing Broadrick (now fully occupied with Godflesh), Scorn quickly worked up a strong fan base, thanks to European performances with Cancer, Pitch Shifter and Cadaver, as well as an impressive Peel Session.

October of 1992 saw Scorn make history, with the release of the 12\ 'Deliverance.' This five track affair weighed in at an incredible 40 minutes in length, thereby making it the world's longest single! This remarkable feat was followed in April 1993 by the 'White Irises Blind' EP, another five tracker that saw the Scorn sound scapes ascending even more monumental and experimental edifices.

June '93 and the band unleashed their second album, 'Colossus', working again with Wakelin, this time at Jasmin Cafe Studios. The record set out to once again challenge all musical preconceptions and attitudes, fusing together complex electronics, savage rhythms and broadly based melodic lines. 'Colossus' was to explode the parameters of music, in the process displaying the myths of rock folklore with a new realism.

May 1994 saw the release of the mighty 'Evanescence' masterpiece, recorded at Nottingham's Square Centre Studios. The immensity of the sound that the album produced was unparalled. Billed as 're-defining ambient-dub', this only began to describe the diversity of the material on offer. Dub grooves melted with pounding bass movements, creating an album as experimental as any but ultimately highly listenable. Instant acclaim poured in from all sides, but it was best summed up by Simon Reynolds of the Melody Maker, calling it simply 'awesome, unmissable.'

Following the release Scorn appeared at the Quartz festival in Norway with the likes of The Orb and Moby. With a full European tour and dates at the Mind the Gap festivals in Europe alongside God, Pitch Shifter, Main and the Revolutionary DubWarriors, Scorn demonstrated that the difference between them and their major league counterparts was being able to take to the road, and not simply restrict themselves to the safety of the studio. In July saw the issue of a remix 12\ by Jack Danger (who also remixed Nine Inch Nails and The Shamen), limited to 2,000 copies. This sparked the idea for a remix album.The project developed into 'Ellipsis' a collaboration with names such as Coil, Scanner, Autechre, P.C.M., Germ and others. Again receiving critical acclaim, Scorn finally became accepted by the dance crowd in their own right, and many eagerly awaited the new release.

That release appeared in the form of 'Gyral', the first to feature Harris alone, following the departure of Bullen shortly after the 'Ellipsis' release. Losing none of his momentum, Harris again pushed on further into a dark and seedy atmosphere of fractured rhythms and waves of sounds warming against a sinister bass. Harris took Scorn to Europe in with a pounding live show which allowed for even more experimentation than on record. Now Scorn has reached the end of the cycle with 'Logghi Barogghi', a record of minimal beats and gloomy soundscapes, marking the end of Harris' exciting departure into the dark ambient apocalypse.

In 1996 Earache re-released the recordings from the \Lick Forever Dog\ and \White Irises Blind\ EPs on one album, called \White Irises Blind\ and also reissued \Deliverance: with an additional set of remixes by Andy Weatherall.