My Debut Album: Wise 'Trip' EP

You can listen to the finalized version of my entire album on SoundCloud.
It is also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon MP3, Deezer, and Rdio!

Wise 'Trip' EP is a "concept album," falling under the sub-genres of ambient, ambient industrial, and "space music," that provides the listener with a variety of unique mental impressions united by a thread of universal metaphysical concepts concerning life and reality.  'Trip' has a double-meaning: trip, as in a journey; and trip, as in a "head-trip".

My goal has been to create a truly fresh, unique, and rich listening experience, with each song being structured and composed to serve as a musical metaphor for the concepts and feelings I wanted to share.  I did not wish to be bound by common song structures in doing so--the structures are defined instead by the concepts themselves.

I have thrown in a mellow, alternative genre "bonus track" I recorded and produced in a little over an hour using a full-featured recording studio.  It was intentionally produced to give it an impromptu, "off-the-cuff" performance feel, with every instrumental and vocal track performed by Drake Holliday.  He has my thanks for letting me work with him on it, and for letting me share this song.

The lyrics for "Ascendency" were written by Taylor Podkranic.  I'm grateful to him for writing them specifically for me, and for how personally meaningful they are to me.  I'm further grateful for him transferring copyright ownership of the lyrics over to my record label.  All together, a great example of thoughtful altruism.

"Ascendancy" was a song born from a deeply personal struggle I had for many years. The primary concept conveyed musically is of moving from "darkness to light". The lyrics, which have strong ties to the mythology of the Phoenix (and were written for me by my friend Taylor Podkranic), are perfectly complimentary to the musical development of the song. The purpose of the song, as a whole, is to remind and inspire people, who may be in, or at least remember, that in their darkest hour, they can transcend their limits and struggles to be reborn into whoever they wish to be...

"Ascendancy" Lyrics
(Written by Taylor Podkranic)

©2015 Wise 'Trip' Records

[Verse 1]

Broken and beaten,

to the depths of my soul

Sundered and shaken,

will I ever be whole?

(Repeat Verse)

[Chorus 1]

Climbing higher and higher,

fists to the sky

Through the smoke and the fire,

screaming why... why!

Why did I fracture?

Why did I break?

Can I come back together?

What will it take?

No longer that boy

Reborn as a man

Embers burn in my eyes,

and now here I stand

...now here I stand

[Verse 2]

Self-loathing a cancer,

dragging me down

Choking on silence,

what then is the sound?

Of a soul as it's breaking,

as all lies are lost

As new eyes come open,

I know the cost

[Chorus 2]

Climbing higher and higher,

fists to the sky

Through smoke and the fire,

screaming why... why!

Why did I stumble?

Why did I fall?

Am I worth saving?

Am I worth it at all?

The answer is yes!

We deserve one more chance

A shot at redemption

I'm worth more than a glance

...more than a glance

[Bridge]

Because if you watch,

I'll burst into flames,

soar out of my ashes

Remember my name

Suffering can cleanse you,

each trial a gift

Harder, Faster, Stronger,

even mountains may shift

You have the power

Exert your will

Learn from this lesson,

as I am still...

[Final Chorus]

Climbing higher and higher,

fists to the sky

Through the smoke and the fire,

screaming I will not die

Now I can fly,

fists to the sky

I will not die

Now I can... fly...

[Outro]

What is broken,

may be mended... (x7)

An Inquiry into the Fundamental Nature of Existence (Reality)

[Although all of the concepts and unifying "Theory of Everything" framework for them have been fully formed, getting it on paper is an ongoing work in progress.  I will be regularly updating this post as the book continues to come together.  Enjoy, and please comment!]

>>http://bit.ly/1H8ill1<<

Last Updated: 20150629-00:39GMT

Systemic Vulnerabilities in the Global Economy

Hello All,

     It would seem, 14 years later, that I was correct in the grander thesis I strongly eluded to throughout my H.S. Senior Paper (available at http://j.mp/SeniorPaper).  In the global economy there has been an ever-growing trend of:

  Increasing over-interdependence of large-scale economic providers, within increasingly-globalized supply chain-webs (most courtesy of “J.I.T.” supply systems, globalized ‘vertical specialization,’ and as I now recognize, the overly interdependent Banking & Lending {financing} web), have made what once was a relatively resilient economic system, capable of dampening out local disruptions, turn into one of a remarkably systemically fragile nature — inherently of the nature to propagate and “snow-ball” microeconomic disruptions into massive socioeconomic disruptions (recent e.g., the 2008 “Sub-Prime Mortgage Bubble” collapse, inducing the “Great Recession”).

I would appreciate your feedback.  This economic trend is going to inevitably be disastrous if we do not alleviate the fundamental systemic vulnerabilities elluded to in my research paper.  Thank you.



"One Love"

Matthew L. Morgan
{ dJ_5entIn3L℠ / WiseFromWithin℠ }
[ Wise ‘Trip’ Records® / Harmony through Music Foundation℠ ]

Poem - "Evil's Safehaven"

It's sad to see,
Under apathy,
That we are not free.

For evil flourishes,
Yes it twists and bends,
Destroying our friends.

And surely we should know,
We're corrupting our own homes,
And building our tombs.

Yet all it would take,
Is to stop being fake,
To end the mistakes.

— M. L. Morgan

Statement on Behalf of Matthew Lee Morgan

November 13, 2015
“An eye-for-an-eye makes the whole world blind…”

To Those Who Judge Without Knowing,
Please allow me to tell you about the true nature of the man who stands before you today — the side of him that only those whom have made an effort to, actually get to know:

Matthew is not some solo maverick who operates with flagrant disregard for the rules.  Nor has he been anything but entirely humble about the diversity of talents he has had at his disposal.  By no means is he glamorous either.  He is not the scion of some high-society family, not the epitome of ‘studly’ masculinity, nor the shining example of flamboyant charisma that immediately and effortlessly wins over people’s ‘hearts and minds’ upon first impression.

No, he is none of these things.  He is merely a (naïvely?) hopeful soul whom has, ultimately, never lost faith in the ideas that people are fundamentally good, when given a real chance to be, and: “Love never fails.” {1st Corinthians 13:8}

As a ten year-old boy, he suddenly gained a bottomless well of compassion — rooted in deep feelings of sorrow — for the plight of his fellow, equally fallible human beings.  At that tender age, he was profoundly struck by the evil and corruption of the world around him, perpetuated by people who were simply lost, broken-hearted, abused, and/or neglected.  The utter tragedy of the ‘human condition’ dawned on him, in all its dystopic ugliness.  Despite all his trials and tribulations, enduring the deepest pains and sufferings of life, he never allowed the wickedness of others, that he was incessantly afflicted by, to harden or corrupt his own heart.  The core of his soul has always been firmly rooted in and nurtured by the good soil of God’s Love.

As such, despite falling victim himself to irrelevant distractions, a broken heart, a permanently broken body, and psychological traumas, which caused him to stumble in darkness for a period of time, he has — in the end — remained an unperturbed idealist resolved to confront, and help others overcome, the canyon-like gulf that exists between an ideal world (driven by a spirit of love, patience, forgiveness, and hope) and the world as it is now (driven primarily by fear, anger, despair, and the petty, self-destructive desire for ‘eye-for-an-eye’ retribution).

His unusually astute awareness of the ever-widening gap between the two ‘worlds’ had cast, until recently, a shadow over his own state of mind, making him chronically depressed, stressed, and overwhelmingly anxious, sometimes to the point of being fatalistic about whether what he had to offer the world could ever make a difference.  Only under the most unfathomably suffocating and unbearable times of near-total hopelessness has he ever cracked under the pressure and done something egregiously bad, in a last-ditch effort (however misguided) to cope with mental torment.

Yet, despite this devastating (if not debilitating) experience — not of his own choosing — by the Grace of God, Matthew stands before you, now, a genuinely ‘new creation.’  Through a complete spiritual rebirth, he has purged all of his formerly paralyzing doubts, fears, and grief; and has achieved a total peace of mind and psychological freedom he had never known before.  This all thanks to — he happily admits frequently — a unification of perspective between sciences, philosophies, and Spirituality (guided by a harmonic synthesis of the most fundamental, uncorrupted aspects of Christian, Native American, Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic, Hindi, and other spiritualities).

Matthew is a heart-warming fulfiller, and shining example, of this quotation: “All us stumblers who believe Love rules, stand up and let It shine.”  In a world full of talkers, Matthew is a thinker and doer.  He doesn’t say much unless you ask him directly, which most folks have learned not to do — to their own detriment.  When he does speak, you wonder if he isn’t some sort of alien who sees the landscape of human ideas and experiences on an entirely whole other level.  The thing is though, he usually makes uncomfortable sense in a world where most people would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not anything of any real value.

Those who actually know him generally like him well enough, provided he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself.  And when he does talk, it isn’t that they stop liking him — rather, they become less satisfied with themselves.  (Common sense and honesty come so naturally to him, people can’t even see them for the gifts they are.)  When inclined to, he can speak intelligently about most anything, and even though you sense he has strong convictions, he has a gentle and humble way about him that let’s you keep your own.

Nowadays, his favorite topics are all about God, the nature of the universe, music, and why people believe and behave the way they do.  When engaged on these subjects, his eyes light up, he smiles brightly, and suddenly, like a little kid, the tiredness melts away and he becomes ageless and hardly able to contain himself.  Such grace seldom makes proper sense for those looking in from the outside.

The last several years of Matthew’s life have represented a true story of personal courage in the face of the darkest depths of remorse, self-hatred, and despair a human being can possibly bear and survive, having pulled himself out of a death-spiral of utter hopelessness.  Ever since he was given a second chance at living a life that is actually worth living, he has not taken a single blessing for granted, no matter how small.  Nor has he, even once, deliberately hurt himself or others through any choice of his own.

In all the time I have known him, he has been a rather kind and gentle soul.  Yet, since his ascension from his own personal hell, he has become all the more impenetrably loving and pure of heart.  For the first time in his entire life, he is truly at peace with himself and the imperfect world around him.

Before I close, I must mention this: Matthew’s prolonged dive into the dark depths of “lessons hard-learned and wisdom hard-earned” (as he had once put it) cost him very, very deeply and dearly.  He has always profoundly mourned the loss of his daughter, his greatest pride and joy in life, as though she had died in his arms four years ago.  Truly, the only thing he seems — at all — to fear any longer is the possibility of finding out something terrible has happened to her, because he hadn’t been there to protect her as her father.

Given all that I have mentioned up to this point, to say that Matthew takes nothing for granted these days would be a gross understatement.  He has always had an uncontainable passion for learning, and, though he occasionally stumbles (as we all certainly do), he has never failed to learn from his mistakes — he is not doomed to repeat them.

I implore you to recognize that, to turn your back on Matthew now, after all the remarkably good things he has accomplished and become, would be an unforgivable travesty and miscarriage of justice…



Most Sincerely,

//ORIGINAL SIGNED//
“Matthew’s Best Friend”