The Dew Line

Twenty years is long enough: It's time to acknowledge Michael Morley as an indie-rock patriarch. And why not? As the guitarist and vocalist for New Zealand noise-trip trio The Dead C and the man behind Gate (ostensibly a solo project, although Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo makes frequent guest appearances), Morley is the rare artist that record-hounds love to unearth: an isotope in the body Pop, radiating an invisible influence. With scores of micro-batch releases and an unmistakably intimate performace idiom, Morley ranks in the company of Jandek or Loren Connors, but it's geographic isolation rather than social disengagement that has deflected his work from reaching more ears.