Tag: Monotonik

Mike Kidd – Impermanence EP {mtk219}

Artist: Mike Kidd
Title: Impermanence EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk219
Release Date: 2009/12/06

It’s fitting that the final release on Monotonik, perhaps for ever, will be from someone new, because we’ve always tried to promote new and interesting artists. Mike Kidd brought the ‘Impermanence EP’ to us and we thought it right, and good, because it combines the melodies we crave with the deep happiness of a well-crafted tune.

Take ‘Haunted Raves’, for example. We’re not really sure which raves have been haunted by it, but the abstract power shown here may well enchant a few party-goers in the future, and as for ‘The Grind’, with its powerful, almost dubstep backing notes – oh my.

Then we have ‘Bilocation’, all triple-triggered strangeness, before we end up with ‘Over Crowds’, an evocation of what could be in the future with strong drums and good hopes and happy cycling. And we’re out.

Tracklist:
01 – Haunted Raves
02 – The Grind
03 – Bilocation
04 – Over Crowds

Artwork:
Front Cover
Back Cover

Additional Links:
[Bandcamp]

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License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)

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Dead Eros – Bone Mountain {mtk218}

Artist: Dead Eros
Title: Bone Mountain
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk218
Release Date: 2009/12/06

Another stalwart Monotonik releaser over the past few years, Dead Eros returns one last time with the noisy, triumphant ‘Bone Mountain’, climbing that pile of dead things with little regard to safety, snare fills, or life and limb.

Really, when you start with ‘Breadbox’, you can go on with happiness, given the amount of almost Aphex-ish convulsions the drums bring to the table, and things continue from there with marvel, given the sheer depth of ‘Inside Sunshine’.

It continues, up and down, and by the time we get to the final track, we feel like we’re really at the top of ‘Bone Mountain’, looking down on the poor souls who didn’t make it, and now comprise the whole of the thing that – well – you just climbed up. Snare rush.

Tracklist:
01 – Breadbox
02 – Inside Sunshine
03 – Rucksack
04 – Crothers
05 – Bone Mountain

Artwork:
Front Cover

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License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)

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Kuu – Pixels EP {mtk217}

Artist: Kuu
Title: Pixels EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk217
Release Date: 2009/12/06

Everyone who likes Monotonik at least a little should know Kuu, aka Joonas Vähämäki, from his Substance releases that date back at least ten years on the site. But he’s also released under his more uptempo Kuu alias at times, and it’s fitting that one of the last releases (for now?) should be under that alias.

‘Pixel EP’ is surprisingly large, and mixes some of the things that Monotonik holds dear – melodies, cutup drums, and swishing noises – in carefully contained cylinders of sound. From the upcoming ‘Xib I’, which is almost cheeky in its straight ahead happiness, through tracks like ‘Voxel’, which cut the heck out of beats, it all makes sense.

Things end up good, too, in ‘Horizontal Pitch’, a blissed out finale to a story that’s lasted for a long time. Just look at the pixels on that thing, won’t you?

Tracklist:
01 – Xib I
02 – Bits N Bytes
03 – Rectangle Dots
04 – Voxels
05 – Horizontal Pitch

Artwork:
Front Cover

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License:
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Clark Vent – Scene Sexshun {mtk216}

Artist: Clark Vent
Title: Scene Sexshun
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk216
Release Date: 2009/12/06

Finnish musician Olavi Inha has previously released on Monotonik with two memorable releases under his Flutterspot alias. But he returns here with another pseudonym, Clark Vent, and with it brings a charming full album of bleepy, semi-abstract uptempo electronic deliciousness in the form of ‘Scene Sexshun’.

Sure, ‘Pardon Me, Clark Kent’ is a sensible start, all up and down and around the houses, but the amusingly named ‘Hello A Lot And Yes Disco’ is a much better statement of intent, crazy spiralling sine waves and almost random-sounding bleep goodness stamped all over the place.

Other highlights include ‘Mimosa’, with an almost Beak-like guitar deconstruction at play, and ‘Fake Marriage Interlude’, which almost sounds like a lost Mario level end theme. It’s that all of the place, and it’s that gorgeous, folks. Enjoy.

Tracklist:
01 – Pardon Me, Clark Kent
02 – Hello A Lot And Yes Disco
03 – Village Loco
04 – Hobo
05 – Mask
06 – Mimosa
07 – Fake Marriage Interlude
08 – And Something Else Again
09 – This Common Flower From The Street Is For You
10 – Satenka Reprise
11 – Sunday In Casuals Except This Sunday
12 – Little Antey
13 – Serious Lovin’
14 – Childhood And Maybe Tomorrow And Some Other Happy Times
15 – Some Part Of A Plane Crash

Artwork:
Front Cover

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License:
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Casimir’s Blake – The Silence In Fragile Space {mtk215}

Artist: Casimir’s Blake
Title: The Silence In Fragile Space
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk215
Release Date: 2009/12/06

UK artist Chris Wigman is Casimir’s Blake, and this intriguing Monotonik release, ‘The Silence In Fragile Space’, plays out like a planetarium soundtrack to end all soundtracks, echoing all kinds of gorgeous sustained chords through history.

Following up a release on Kahvi, this full-length album starts as it means to go on with ‘Achird Supernovae’, flittering strings and depths of space to the fore. It certainly gets darker elsewhere, with ‘Rich’s Feyd’ one of the more edge-wise, skuttering tracks in the gaps between the planets.

As the album continues, the bliss builds, and it’s only with the final track, ‘Eavesdropping On Eternity’, that you get the full picture of the place that Wigman and his project has created through careful musical manipulation. It’s out there, somewhere…

Tracklist:
01 – Achird Supernovae
02 – Launch Leto
03 – Rich Feyd
04 – Crossing Achell
05 – Ketts Feyd
06 – Silence And Fragile Space
07 – The Wall Storm Shuffle
08 – Prairie And Starlight
09 – Plaskett’s Caenosphere
10 – Brash Feyd
11 – Eavesdropping On Eternity

Artwork:
Front Cover
Back Cover

Additional Links:
[Bandcamp]

Download

License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)

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Malty Media – Buk Buk Buk EP {mtk214}

Artist: Malty Media
Title: Buk Buk Buk EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk214
Release Date: 2009/12/06

Malty Media is, of course, previous Monotonik releaser Aquaboogie and long-time veteran idm artist Jet Jaguar, creators of the ‘Bracken Bed’ EP on the label a while back, and they kick off the final set of MTK releases with this fine piece of frippery.

The New Zealand-based group’s style is best described as ‘whimsical Orb-like soundscapes with an Antipodean twist’, perhaps, and these four-track pulses through gently chicken-clucking debut track ‘Chook Nocturne’, before settling on gently glowing tracks like ‘See To Her’.

It all ends up with the practically funky ‘My Little Aircraft’, and all goes to show that sampling, while a little silly, is never bad for your health. Good health to you, Malty Media!

Tracklist:
01 – Chook Nocturne
02 – Hilbert Space
03 – See To Her
04 – Butcher
05 – My Little Aircraft

Artwork:
Front Cover

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License:
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Bitbasic – Sprinkling Rainbows {mtk213}

Artist: BitBasic
Title: Sprinkling Rainbows
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk213
Release Date: 2009/08/09

After his first release in Monotonik on 2007, the ‘Grating Rainbows’ EP, we are absolutely delighted to present a long in-development full album — ‘Sprinkling Rainbows’ from the UK resident Bitbasic, whose super-funky drill and bass attitude to jazzy electronica makes it one of our favorite label releases of the last few years.

In a similar fashion to earlier Monotonik releases like Aleksi Virta’s album, ‘Grating Rainbows’ cuts up the jazzy breaks with the electronic in entirely alluring ways, with ‘Flannel’ a great initial example of the headnodding, sometimes brain-scrambling stylings. There’s even tremendously evocative Bent-style spaced-out melodies of tracks like ‘Blueish’.

With a full album to choose from, you can yoyo easily between the super fast, funky breaks of ‘Realization’ and the sinewave bleeps of ‘Monos’, before it all ends up with an entirely unexpected, glorious funk attack, as a super-chilled cover of ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ starts going terribly, terribly wrong half-way through. And it’s awesome.

Once again, thanks to Bitbasic for letting us put out this album under a Creative Commons license, and we hope you dig it and check out his site for his latest gigs, EPs, single tracks, and other goodness.

Credits:
pic by bitbasic associates!

Tracklist:
01 – Strafe
02 – Flannel
03 – Things Being Fried
04 – Blueish
05 – Zero G In Fluff
06 – Realization
07 – Make
08 – Get Me Out
09 – Monos
10 – Sprinkling Rainbows
11 – Yellowish
12 – Damaged Beyond Repair
13 – Ain’t No Sunshine

Artwork:
Front Cover

Additional Links:
[Bandcamp]

Download

License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)

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General Fuzz – Soulful Filling {mtk212}

Artist: General Fuzz
Title: Soulful Filling
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk212
Release Date: 2009/06/14

As we edge into summer, we’re proud to give further exposure to a gorgeous album submitted to Monotonik late last year from James Kirsch, aka General Fuzz, and the truly spectacular chill-out electronic that is ‘Soulful Filling’.

Having grown up in Newton, MA, General Fuzz is happy to make his home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he recruited a number of talented local live musicians to fill out the electronic sounds on this charming full-length album. (In fact, his website has a detailed ‘making-of’ page with info on all the collaborators.)

Highlights? Well, pedal steel has been a key part of the best chillout for many years now, and ‘Warm Steel’ is a great example of that in action, while lead-off track ‘Eye Heart Knot’ has a tremendously evocative, interlocking set of melodies around it.

We’re proud that the General has let us put this album out on Monotonik – donate to him to help support his art if you dig it, won’t you?

Credits:
pic by general fuzz

Tracklist:
01 – Eye Heart Knot
02 – Four Prophets
03 – Comfort Zone
04 – Mellow Drama
05 – Warm Steel
06 – Go Inward
07 – Starry
08 – Second Thoughts
09 – Walking Home
10 – Fuzzy Prayer
11 – Goodbyes

Artwork:
Full Art

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License:
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Chromatic Flights – Favorite Cat EP {mtk211}

Artist: Chromatic Flights
Title: Favorite Cat EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk211
Release Date: 2009/05/03

A long time coming, the third Monotonik release from Chromatic Flights, aka Florida’s Kyle Wyss, debuts after some heavy buzz for his main project, the two-man band Blind Man’s Colour, online.

In fact, with none other than Kanye West linking his Blind Man’s Colour material and the band signed to Kanine Records (Grizzly Bear, Mommy And Daddy), we’re delighted to be continuing to put out his solo material for Monotonik fans.

Continuing from his first and second free releases on Monotonik, ‘Memories From The Audible Color Wheel’ and ‘Heavy Stars Will Fall’, respectively, this new EP continues to layer in gorgeous mixes of shoegazing melodies and electronic goodness. We very much appreciate Kyle’s support and patience.

(And on that front, note to Monotonik listeners – sorry we’ve been slowing down our output of late. Real life — and the overwhelming amount of music available on the Internet — has been intervening. We’ll try to keep it going at a reasonable pace.)

Credits:
pic by kyle

Tracklist:
01 – Orangle Balloon
02 – Warmer Morning Storms
03 – Favorite Cat
04 – The Story Of The Sun

Artwork:
Front Cover

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License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)

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Jap Jap – A Resonant Discovery {mtk210}

Artist: Jap Jap
Title: A Resonant Discovery
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk210
Release Date: 2009/02/28

Monotonik is delighted to present a free, full six-track EP from Holland’s Jasper Boer, aka Jap Jap, in the form of ‘A Resonant Discovery’, including a remix by Dutch artist Morgenfish.

The EP consists of varied types of beautifully smooth idm pieces coupled with evolving melodic motifs, which go through different moods: from chillout ambient to more uptempo material.

This showcases Jap Jap’s signature style of solidly produced minimal yet melodic style of dance, which draws inspiration from dreampop, synthpop, postrock and electronica chill out genre artists Ulrich Schnauss and Manual.

Credits:
pic by jap jap

Tracklist:
01 – Winds Of Change
02 – Reunited Spirits (Interlude)
03 – Morning Light Dream
04 – Coloured Cubes
05 – Surrounded By Magic
06 – The Long Walk Home
07 – Coloured Cubes (Morgenfish Remix)

Artwork:
Full Art

Additional Links:
[Bandcamp]

Download
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