Project Spotlight #2: What is NueroMorgue?

By late 1992, Mune Mud had already released three albums and the fourth was being recorded. But the music was becoming more diverse. It was feared that the varied types of music on one album would turn most people off to the album (people who liked slower, more melodic music would not care for the new faster, more industrial sound, and vice versa). So it was decided to branch out and create a new project: NueroMorgue.

Where did the name come from? The word nuero had been tagged as usable for something for quite some time and to represent the dark and heavy moods of some of the songs the word morgue was used. So NueroMorgue was born. The name was relatively easy to come up with. No project logo was ever decided on, but below is the design test sheet from March 25, 1993.

NueroMorgue was keeping true to the earlier Mune Mud influences of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and other industrial groups, especially with the recent biggest equipment upgrade the Studio has ever seen at one time. Overnight, the Studio had a new sequencer, new sound modules, and the supporting equipment for a MIDI studio. So the distorted guitar and synth sounds evolved.

Who was in NueroMorgue? It depends on who you ask.The credits on the album say Jason Watson. Credits on the 1994 EP and lyric booklet go to Gargoyle. But others report an entire line-up of players: Python XYZ (bass guitar), El Cid minor (drums), Agnus Dei (lead guitar), and Venus Psyche (rhythm guitar). So the actual member(s) still remain a mystery.

The first NueroMorgue album, Devis Tortura, was recorded at the same time as its bipolar opposite album, Mune Mud's Pryme Material. It was released on December 14, 1993, and was chock full o' samples from other Metal XOR songs, TV clips, pieces of other music, and much more. It was a very complex album. A few months later a lyric booklet titled "Devastation and Minim Opi" was released. This contained every lyric found on the album buried within a main story and seven short stories. The book ended with a full-page drawing by NueroMorgue titled Primordial Water and Lotus.

Following that album and book was a seven-song EP called E. Phantasmata, released in 1994. It contained some demos and alternate versions of songs from Devis Tortura plus a couple of unreleased tracks.

There was a break from NueroMorgue for a while, then recording started again. There was a lot of new material recorded for the second full-length NueroMorge album but it was never compiled and completed (see the proposed track list from January 10, 1996, below).

There have been plans on re-releasing Devis Tortura on CD, but its 10th anniversary has come and gone and the idea has been dropped again for the time being. There were also plans to release the unused songs on a new album, but the track listing was incomplete. So until more material is recorded, these dark and dreary treasures will not be heard. Recording techniques have drastically changed since NueroMorgue's hay day, but the new techniques actually lend themselves better to recording the type of music NueroMorgue creates.

So until the project is resurrected, R.I.P. NueroMorgue!


Next week's Project Spotlight: What is NueroMud?