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Evacuate Your Seats!  Walter “Junie” Morrison’s 1984 album found the veteran of Ohio Players and Parliament-Funkadelic digging deep into techno-funk sounds with his own singular sensibility.  The original credits proclaimed that Morrison produced, performed, wrote, and directed the album – and indeed, Morrison was a one-band man save for the engineers joining him in the studio.  Now, his funky tour de force is coming to CD from Iconoclassic Records.  On March 24, the label will release a newly remastered expanded edition adding six bonus tracks to the original album.

Ohio native Morrison joined the reformed Ohio Players in 1970 as a keyboardist, contributing mightily to such albums as the trilogy of Pain, Pleasure, and Ecstasy in 1972-1973.  Morrison left the band in 1974 to pursue a solo career at the Players’ home of Westbound Records; he released three albums for the label billed simply as “Junie.”  He wrote, arranged, produced, and played all instruments on 1975’s Freeze but brought in outside arrangers (including Motown veterans Jimmy Roach and David Van De Pitte) for the same year’s When We Do and welcomed guest musicians for 1976’s Suzie Super Groupie.  (He even covered Ashford and Simpson’s “Surrender” on the latter.)​

Morrison joined George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic in 1977, serving as musical director for the big band and helping to shape the band’s sound on such pivotal releases as One Nation Under a Groove, Motor Booty Affair, and Gloryhallastoopid.  He moved to Columbia Records as a solo artist in 1980 concurrent with his departure from P-Funk, and recorded two albums for the label.  Evacuate Your Seats would be his sixth solo album and his last for two decades.    As the title indicates, the pulsating music practically demanded that listeners get on their feet.  The multi-instrumentalist was energized by the possibilities of blending electronics, samples, and programmed sounds with live instrumentation, and his immersion into the new musical landscape proved influential on the Detroit Techno scene.  (Westbound was located in Detroit and Morrison’s influence there remained significant.)  Junie released his final solo album in 2004 on his own Juniefunk label, and continued to release singles online through his death in 2017 at the age of 62.

Iconoclassic’s worldwide CD premiere of Evacuate Your Seats has been remastered by Nick Robbins from the original masters and adds six bonus tracks including three Arthur Baker remixes of “Tease Me,” the U.K. single edit and 12-inch remix of “Techno-Freqs,” and dub mix “T-Freqan.” Andy Kellman has written the new liner notes in the 16-page booklet.

Look for Junie Morrison’s Evacuate Your Seats on March 24 from Iconoclassic Records.  You’ll find the track listing and pre-order links below.

Junie Morrison, Evacuate Your Seats (ZE Records 90191-1, 1984 – reissued Iconoclassic ICON 1065, 2023) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Iconoclassic Records)

1. Tease Me
2. Show Me Yours
3. Stick It In
4. Gyrate
5. Break 6
6. Driving in a Porsche
7. Techno-Freqs
8. Here With You Tonight
9. Tease Me (Arthur Baker Edit) (Island single 7-99693, 1984)
10. Tease Me (Arthur Baker Long Version) (Island 12-inch single 0-96912, 1984)
11. Tease Me (Arthur Baker Dub) (Island 12-inch single 0-96912, 1984)
12. Techno-Freqs (U.K. Single Edit) (Island single IS 171, 1984)
13. Techno-Freq (Remix – 12″ Vocal) (ZE/4th and Broadway 12-inch single 404, 1984)
14. T-Freqan (Dub) (ZE/4th and Broadway 12-inch single 404, 1984)