credit: Eli Frank
by Max Freedman (@anticlimaxwell)
Better known as “white mulberry,” the morus alba tree seems to have significance beyond just a name to musician Marcel Rudin. Not only does he front a band named Morus Alba, but he also co-founded and co-manages a label named—wait for it—Mulberry Sound Recordings. This fascination dates at least back to Rudin’s senior year of high school, when he would skip gym classes to record what would eventually become his band’s debut EP, Adultnescent. Now a full band with members from both Rudin’s Union City hometown and his alma mater, Bard College, Morus Alba is following last year’s debut album, Stay Asleep, with a video series called “Live in a Room.” Its first two installments featured the band playing Stay Asleep tracks “Moment You Crash” and “Winter” in Brooklyn’s Room 17; today, Post-Trash is thrilled to premiere a new Morus Alba song, “Human Resources,” as the final installment in the series. The band has released a corresponding Live in a Room EP as well, via Bandcamp.
“Human Resources,” which Rudin describes as the story of “an absent parent fucking off and getting high,” will be included on Morus Alba’s next studio release. The song, one of the band’s most impressive to date, relies heavily on Rudin’s voice, which boasts exceptional range, for its emotional highs. Its verses amp up beefy guitars with Rudin’s stoic bellow, using a cold and dissonant chorus to properly build to a verse of nasally belted sentiments. His band’s startlingly tight riffage and percussion, courtesy of guitarist Seby Martinez, bassist Dante Silver-Evans, and drummer Daniel “Rizzo” Risdon, are commanding but not overcrowding, leaving Rudin plenty of space to flex his riveting singing over his band’s midtempo dirge. A gnarly, quick guitar solo brings things crashing down, offering the final catharsis in a song that’s already incredibly relieving for its creator.
Morus Alba will bring “Human Resources” and other new songs on the road with Professor Caveman soon. Tour dates are listed below:
7/27 Bloomfield, CT @ Blind Moose *
7/28 Jersey City, NJ @ Jersey Art Exchange
7/29 Queens, NY @ House With No Name *
8/01 Philadelphia, PA *
8/04 Cincinatti, OH *
8/05 Indianapolis, IN @ Nantucket Island *
8/06 Melrose Park, IL @ Steel House *
8/08 Ann Arbor, MI @ Blue House *
8/09 Kalamazoo, MI *
8/10 Brooklyn, NY @ Muchmore's
8/11 New Brunswick, NJ @ Columbia Bank *
8/12 Philadelphia, PA @ Pharmacy *
* w/ Professor Caveman