T. Hardy Morris has signed with the Athens, GA based New West Records imprint Normaltown Records and is set to return with Dude, The Obscure on June 22nd, 2018. The 11-song set was produced by Adam Landry (Deer Tick, Lilly Hiatt) and follows the Diamond Rugs and Dead Confederate member’s 2015 album Hardy & the Hardknocks: Drownin on a Mountaintop. While Drownin’ was a more hard-driving, country-grunge affair, Dude, The Obscure returns to the dark, hushed, and intimate vibe found on Morris’ critically acclaimed 2013 solo debut, Audition Tapes. At its heart, the new album captures the songwriter contemplating the paradox of everyday life. In captivating songs, Morris sheds the traps of ambition and nostalgia and uncovers the strange satisfaction of living in the moment. Paste Magazine premiered the album’s lead off track, “Be,” today, stating the song “features bold, atmospheric instrumentation amidst the abstract ruminations of a frantic, overwrought Morris. The song opens with disorienting feedback and the bellowing echoes of marching drums before Morris cuts through the noise with his reassuring lead vocals, striving for that ‘sublime’ feeling alongside acoustic guitar and piano.” Hear it Here. Ahead of the release of Dude, The Obscure, Morris will appear at Shovels & Rope’s High Water Festival this weekend and will support Matthew Logan Vasquez of Delta Spirit in May. He’ll also celebrate the release of Dude, The Obscure on Friday, June 22nd with a performance at the Georgia Theatre in Athens, GA. Please see all dates below, with many more to be announced soon. Dude, The Obscure will be available on vinyl, compact disc, and across digital platforms and is available for pre-order via New West Records.
Morris remains Athens, Georgia’s foremost purveyor of dynamic rock-and-roll-songwriting and his blend of poetic southern outlaw storytelling is delivered in a haunting vocal howl. The sonic energy and raw emotion in Morris’ music captures the same call to adventure that helped launch other Athens-born bands (including R.E.M., B-52’s, Vic Chesnutt, The Drive-By Truckers, The Elephant 6 Collective, and The Glands before him) and put the artsy college town on the map. “A lot of Southern artists who might not feel quite right in their hometowns migrate to Athens. Drawn here by the sound of a weird Southern heart, I guess,” Morris said. “I knew I had to live there.” Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood described Morris’ songwriting as, “distilling that subtle truth down to its very essence and expressing it in a way that cuts through the bullshit…I was immediately blown away.”
Morris’ given name is Thomas Hardy Morris and Dude, The Obscure is an homage to the English author Thomas Hardy’s 1895 novel Jude The Obscure. Once considering taking “Dude, The Obscure” as a stage name, he says, “The hat tip to the novel seemed appropriate for the album because it deals with doubts, joys, regrets and spirituality, a lifelong journey and such. Thankfully, my life hasn’t endured even a fraction of the tragedy the novel holds, but life is certainly complicated and unique, an individual experience for everyone, no matter how obscure.” In a lot of ways, Dude, The Obscure flows from a conflicting creative space Morris found at the intersection of dreams and reality. Each song on the album seems compelled by Morris’ desire to help himself – and others – conquer the void of everyday meaninglessness. “We tried to stay present in the recording process,” he offers. “We weren’t concerned with genre or style to take songs in any direction other than where they seemed to take us. If it was creepy, we followed the creepy. The record has a darkness but it’s held in harmony with a light that acknowledges the other side of our personalities. It’s not as important to drive out the shadows as it is to acknowledge their existence and keep them where they belong.”
Morris is a founding member of the indie-rock supergroup Diamond Rugs alongside John McCauley and Robbie Crowell of Deer Tick, Ian Saint Pe of Black Lips, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, and Bryan Dufresne of Six Finger Satellite. The group have released two albums to date; their 2012 eponymous debut followed by 2015’s Cosmetics. He is also a founding member of the rock band Dead Confederate whose first single “The Rat” anchored their debut record and introduced him to life on the road. The band played 200-plus shows a year, supported R.E.M., and toured Europe with Dinosaur Jr. Morris says “We did everything, played the big festivals, toured half the world. We still consider ourselves a band, somewhat, but we just needed to slow down after awhile.”
With Dude, The Obscure’s eleven powerful songs, the Athens rocker reveals scars and shares lessons from an indie-rock odyssey that has taken him around the world and back home to find himself a little older and closer to something like enlightenment. And just in time for a new journey to begin.
T. Hardy Morris Dude, The Obscure Track Listing
1. Be
2. Homemade Bliss
3. The Night Everything Changed
4. Cheating Life, Living Death
5. When The Record Skips
6. Stage Names
7. No Reason
8. NY
9. Lit By Midnight
10. 4 Days of Rain
11. Purple House Blues
T. Hardy Morris On Tour:
April 21st – North Charleston, SC High Water Festival
May 6th – Greenville, SC Radio Room *
May 8th – Charlotte, NC The Evening Muse *
May 10th – Washington, DC DC9 Nightclub *
May 11th – Brooklyn, NY Rough Trade NYC *
May 12th – Philadelphia, PA World Cafe Live *
May 13th – Cambridge, MA The Middle East *
June 22nd – Athens, GA Georgia Theatre (Record Release Show)
*with Matthew Logan Vasquez
