WL//WH Review MONOTON TID
Monoton tid is a new elusive outfit from Sweden, made of Emilia (vox /synth), Fredrik (synth), and Vincent (bass /synth /vox), fresh from releasing, last weekend, their debut 4-track “Demo”, filled with a dark, frozen, hardly abrasive, atmospheric synth-laden sound with gloomy Post-punk undertones, cloaked in DIY ‘Minimal Synth aesthetics, that besides its ’80s leanings (The Cure, Joy Division, Malaria, Guerre Froide, and French Coldwave), hints as well to the more contemporary Lebanon Hanover and possibly Monowelt from a few years ago.
Submerged in spectral echoes, depressing hazy tones and mesmerizing eerie atmospherics, monotonous, often motorik-tinged, dry skeletal beats from an urgent drum machine, interplay with the sinuously and swaying wanders of pulsing broody resonant basslines, washed by relentlessly buzzing reedy synth riffs over, sparsely layered, numb deadpan vocals.
The equally surreal and claustrophobic skittery opener “Den monotona tiden”, is followed by the mesmeric and unrelenting Kraut-infused chugging ride of “Statiska”, reserving its best in the mechanical syncopated rhythms and shadowy angsty melodicism of “Repetition”, to close strongly with clattering metallic claps and ominously doomy sonorous undercurrents, rife with Post-punk low-end bleakness, of “Ett h ä ngande ljus”, whilst buzzing swirling keyboards sizzle around cold haunted vocals, lost in merciless dull bottomless gray mists.
As monochromatic and deceptively uniform as it may appear at first superficial listening, the Monoton tid‘s first endeavor is deeply intriguing for its subtle nuances, like a stripped-down bass/synth/rhythm box sound should be, driving into at the same time faraway yet familiar cold, uncompromising and murky out-of-time sound realms of introspective dread.
Monoton tid‘s debut 4-track “Demo” is out now on limited Cassette and Digital via the band’s Bandcamp.
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