Track Of The Day MONOLAND
Monoland is a longstanding Berlin-based Indie / Shoegaze group formed in 1996 by vocalist/guitarist Marco Blazejczak, guitarist Henrik Schiemann, bassist Matthias Ecker-Erhardt, and drummer Daniel Martin Grinstead.
With three albums under their belt, the band made a name for themselves through a strong DIY attitude, a dynamic concert activity, and an hard to pinpoint rich, textured and atmospheric experimental guitar sound, laced with warm analog tones, and hypnotic loops, “often associated with the term ‘Rauschen’ (noise)”, influenced by bands like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Bowery Electric as reference points, but with a penchant for stretching beyond genre boundaries.
After around 19 years’ hiatus, their latest LP, “Ben Chalice”, dates back to 2009, the four-piece just dropped the first excerpt, “Kate”, lifted from the upcoming 6-track EP, titled, as it was a new beginning, “First”, via 1991 Recordings (UK) and Supermodern Music (GE).
Equal parts understated glistening nuance and subtly jarring distortion, the quartet embraces the subdued, cathartic reflective intimacy of Galaxie 500, ushered by a post-rock-tinged ghostly floating of guitar chords, while an organ-like sound glimmers in the distance. “Emily” pushes seamlessly from calm to intensity, unfurling around mellifluous, aloof male vocals lay on a subtly vibrant unravel of agile and lithe drums and warm pulsating bass under a shimmery, hazy swarming carpet, washed in reverb and delay, layered with swelling and resonant emotive wailing trails, to drift between angst and elation, haloed by ecstatic backups, fading out into a harmonious acoustic coda.
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