Tag: Monotonik

Troupe – It’s Really Pretty Simple After All {mtk179}

Artist: Troupe
Title: It’s Really Pretty Simple After All
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk179
Release Date: 2007/01/28

A long, long time in the making, U.S. artist Troupe presents his first EP for Monotonik, ‘It’s Really Pretty Simple After All’, a plain spectacular mix of demo-scene inspired electronica, soaring melodies, and beautiful vocals.

Imagine, if you will, an American who has grown up and been musically influenced by the greats of the Amiga demo-scene – which this label itself was birthed from in 1996. Then mix in transcendent vocals reminiscent of favorite Monotonik releases like Bliss, and you get to…. a great place. You may know Troupe from his early EP for Backtrack, or, indeed, from his recent guest vocal appearance on the Seathasky release for Monotonik, but this 5-track EP from the teenager showcases why it makes perfect sense that he release with us.

So, what do we have? ‘It’s Complicated’ has a multi-layered synth start, before blasting in to a ridiculously lush melodic vocal bridge. Then we get to the even more demo-scene or even oddly jazzinfluenced tracks, like ‘The Way Things Would Have Been’, with super syncopated lead lines hissing in and out of view like snakes of melodic justice.

Perhaps the highlight is ‘At Least We Have Friends’, which is as close to a pop song as we’ve ever released here, in the best way, but then ‘Not Much Else’ blasts beautiful electro-pop to amazing effect, and the EP’s title track is drifting on layers of sound, and… I know Monotonik is all over the place stylistically of late, but you see the thread, right, listeners? I know I do. And this right here is the golden one.

Credits:
pic by h0l

Tracklist:
01 – It’s Complicated
02 – The Way Things Would Have Been Another Time
03 – At Least We Have Friends
04 – Not Much Else
05 – It’s Really Pretty Simple After All

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Ollie Cram – Rai-Ken {mtk178}

Artist: Ollie Cram
Title: Rai-Ken
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk178
Release Date: 2007/01/16

Something different, this time out, with the part nu-chill, part world music, part live-played album, ‘Rai-Ken’ from Bristol, UK native Ollie Cram – it’s pitched somewhere between the chillout of previous Monotonik releaser Izmar and something much further out than that, and that’s why we dig it.

Things start out with ‘Over Yonder’, all interplay with the live-played organ – there’s also guitar, keyboards, synth, bass, and mandolin played live on the album by Mr. Cram himself – before we move on to the funky guitar interplay of ‘Whatever You Say’, and far beyond that.

Some other highlights? The positively glorious strut of ‘Peace In Our Land’, and the almost elevatormuzak chill of ‘Rai-Ken’ itself. Again, this may not quite be our normal speed, but I think that’s why we like it – it’s good to be different, and the album, which was previously available on a number of paid music download portals, is all kinds of out there.

Credits:
pic by Ollie Cram

Tracklist:
01 – Away Over Yonder
02 – Whatever You Say
03 – It Could Have Been Me
04 – Down Quietways
05 – Blame
06 – Hey Mama
07 – Peace In Our Land
08 – Maya
09 – Awaiting Alanna
10 – Rai-Ken
11 – There’s Something To Be Said
12 – Magic

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Gaza F*gg*t – Welcome To Softbo {mtk177}

Artist: Gaza F*gg*t
Title: Welcome To Softbo
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk177
Release Date: 2006/12/30

Not necessarily one of Monotonik’s most ‘normal’ releases, but heartily welcomed anyhow, this unconventional glitch-electronic 7-track EP is from the oddly named Gaza F*gg*t, who can best be described as, well, an alter ego of a previous Monotonik releaser.

It all starts off with the gentle organ of ‘Horse With Gold Teeth’, before the latter end of the track gets all warped and Japanese-speech sampling, before the completely awesome ‘Rotten Fruit Messageboard Apology’ arrives, all explicit heartfelt sung apology for getting out of hand on some Internet messageboard or other – and eating babies. A more angelic apology has never been received, we reckon.

From then, it gets pretty far out, with ‘Softbo’ flipping up double speed and halfspeed electronic weirdness and ‘A Night After A Night After’ cutting up speech and erratic percussion into some kind of weird melange. Like we said, a break from the norm – but we can’t be calm and serene all the time, right? Call it our freak-out period.

Credits:
pic by h0l

Tracklist:
01 – Horse With Gold Teeth
02 – Rotten Fruit Messageboard Apology
03 – Titfarts
04 – Softbo
05 – Testb
06 – A Night After A Night After
07 – Softbo (Reprise)

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Seathasky – Exist EP {mtk176}

Artist: Seathasky
Title: Exist EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk176
Release Date: 2006/12/17

We’re delighted to release this 3-track EP from Seathasky, who you may not think you’ve heard of, but is also known as previous Monotonik releaser Blisaed, who uses this moniker for his more electronica tinged, beautifully produced electronic music.

And, well, we’ll let Blisaed himself describe his release: “Matthew Centonze, as an artist, has been in the game since 1997 creating music for the Internet scene for many different netlabels under his IDM/experimental moniker Blisaed. Now, going back to his roots of electronic music, he presents Seathasky… Since early 2004, Seathasky has only released one EP called Polygon Prison under the defunct netlabel Nuspirit. Now after 2 years, he releases the Exist EP.”

The EP itself starts out with the beautifully poised ‘In Space’, and continues through the delightful ‘Never’ before the final track, ‘Exist’, features upcoming Monotonik solo releaser Troupe with some spectacularly executed lyrics – and we’re delighted to release it on the label.

Credits:
pic by h0l

Tracklist:
01 – In Space
02 – Never
03 – Exist (featuring Troupe)

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Sonmi451 – The Quiet EP {mtk175}

Artist: Sonmi451
Title: The Quiet EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk175
Release Date: 2006/11/20

It’s a delight to welcome Belgian artist Bernard Zwijzen, aka Sonmi451, a veteran of release of real-life labels such as U-Cover, to Monotonik with his rather divine 4-track release, ‘The Quiet EP’, which artfully blends ambience and melody in some delightfully beguiling ways.

The EP, which includes both tracks from Sonmi451’s super-limited edition U-Cover CDR ‘Vladivostok’, as well as new material, starts out with the title track from that CDR, which is ambient drift incarnate, before moving on to ‘Inner Structure’, which uses loops and an almost triphop aesthetic, with gently trilling voices and tinkling rustles spreading slowly all over the dial.

Things finish out with ‘Quiet Piece For Bram’, which swells and swells to awesome heights of rotating ambience, before ‘Dilating’ delves all the way into clickhouse, with some gorgeous percussion and chord rumbles – a fitting end to an excellent EP.

Credits:
pic by sonmi451

Tracklist:
01 – Vladivostok
02 – Inner Structure
03 – Quiet Piece For Bram
04 – Dilating

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Transient – Hexual Ceiling {mtk174}

Artist: Transient
Title: Hexual Ceiling
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk174
Release Date: 2006/10/29

We’re delighted to debut the fourth Monotonik release from prodigious U.S. idm veteran Transient, in the form of the 20-track ‘Hexual Ceiling’ album. He’s previously released on multiple major netlabels such as Kikapu, Ogredung and Miasmah, as well as debuting remixes and other tracks on labels such as Darla and TBTMO, plus his own Noisy Vagabond, and this longform effort doesn’t disappoint.

Anyhow, there are all kinds of highlights to the album, from the delightful drift of lead-off track ‘Cloudwalk’, through the intriguing, almost booty-based remix of Bay Area idm freak Mochipet, all the way through the impeccable sway of the title track.

Things finish up with ‘Magical Creatures’, a totally weird but smart vocal blast: ‘I got no motivation… to make these magical creatures’, before it’s brought home with the absolutely sublime ‘RPG’. He’s still one of the smartest artists out there on the electronic scene, on the sly, and we still love releasing his material – long may it continue.

Credits:
pic by transient

Tracklist:
01 – Cloudwalk
02 – Don’t Sweat It
03 – Summer Rain
04 – Head Full Of Stars
05 – Mochipet – Disco Donkey (Transient Palmix)
06 – Backporch
07 – Cute Vision
08 – Finality
09 – Dubble Bubble
10 – Hexual Ceiling
11 – Ghouls
12 – Shatter
13 – Ending Began
14 – Sine Experiment
15 – Cute People And God (Bad Comfort Remix)
16 – Magical Creatures
17 – Just So I Don’t Have To Hate It
18 – Masking Interlude
19 – We Don’t Exist
20 – RPG

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Christopher Waley – 10 Years Of Monotonik – The Mix {mtk173}

Artist: Christopher Waley
Title: 10 Years Of Monotonik – The Mix
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk173
Release Date: 2006/10/15

So, we made it – ’10 Years Of Monotonik – The Mix’ is testament to that. It’s hard to believe that it was in early 1996 that we first started up our net.label Mono – initially as a .MOD-only label, since this was before the days of MP3s (and, indeed, of very wide use of the Internet.) What a long way we’ve come since then.

The first couple of years, for those who recall it, actually had individual Commodore Amiga-based BBSes distributing our material as ‘official distros’, before FTP sites such as Aminet kicked in and made spreading material much easier, then Scene.org started helping out and a switch to PCs and MP3s was made (in around 1999!) From then on out, there was a dalliance with sublabels, including the now defunct Mono211 and Monoraveik, before Monotonik was standardized on and we carried on publishing the best Creative Commons-licensed, freely distributable MP3s we could find right to where we are now, halfway through the ’00s.

So many people deserve thanks for helping us keep on keeping on – from Tommy (Support.nl admin) through stalwart Monotonik releasers such as Vim! and Lackluster, and more recent supporters like Ossi (Planet Boelex). I’d like to thank my family and my wife Holly for giving me the inspiration to continue Mono, but most of all, it’s the Monotonik artists – you’re the label, not me, and it would be nothing without you.

It’s hard to estimate exactly, but millions of music tracks from hundreds of Monotonik artists have been downloaded in the last ten years, and thus, we commissioned a special mix from Christopher ‘Whalefish’ Whaley to honor some of our favorite Mono artists and moments. Here’s the full tracklisting (and there’s some danger of a part 2 mix, since we had to leave so much good stuff out, btw):

1. bliss – life on the rooftop
2. secede – seafold
3. planet boelex – paprikas from deep
4. vim! – whirlwind snooker
5. braces tower – king of rock
6. ramone – back to the oldskool
7. super science – sometimes we’re happy
8. whiskas – as in cockroach
9. dreamfish – twisted riddim
10. fun tourist – ddd
11. beak – amoral mayor earwig
12. twilight – crystal rain
13. distance/lackluster – starcell u.k.
14. aleksi virta – outer edge intro
15. thug – obatem by night
16. jiva – sous l’eau au pied
17. luminfire – bananadittydub
18. esem – thinmute
19. sense – icy l tap
20. sleepy town manufacture – lain say you care
21. grandma – strawberry rhubarb oppai
22. transient – trashybin
23. idmonster – the force may be with you

Spread the mix, and we love you all.
– Simon Carless, Monotonik – October 2006

Credits:
pic by h0l

Tracklist:
01 – 10 Years Of Monotonik – The Mix

Artwork:
Front Cover

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Flutterspot – Labmat {mtk172}

Artist: Flutterspot
Title: Labmat
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk172
Release Date: 2006/10/01

This time, a Monotonik debut for Finnish graphic artist and musician Flutterspot, and pretty much his first music release anywhere, with the gorgeous electronic tones of ‘Labmat’.

What do we like about this? Well, for starters, ‘Daily Sway Of Everything (That You Touch)’ is satisfyingly chunky, before ‘Sky So My’ segues into some smartly rotating beats. Then, there’s ‘Liihko Hymn’, which is layers and layers of sound in an almost shoegaze fashion, but with firm rhythms layered on top, before ‘World End Ballad’ brings things to a close in an unnaturally fluid manner.

And why do we like this? Because it’s the kind of gorgeous music that doesn’t get played in enough places, but we’re perfectly positioned to bring to our loving audience via the handy method of Creative Commons-licensed free electronic distribution. Flutterspot’s music deserves to flutter around the world – only you can make it happen.

Credits:
pic by llwya

Tracklist:
01 – Daily Sway Of Everything (That You Touch)
02 – Sky So My
03 – Liihko Hymn
04 – World End Ballad

Artwork:
Front Cover

Additional Links:
[Bandcamp]

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Northbound – Landscapes Of Late {mtk171}

Artist: Northbound
Title: Landscapes Of Late
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk171
Release Date: 2006/09/10

We’re proud to present the debut release on Monotonik from Northbound, a band consisting of Mikko Roisko and Olli Jäderholm, self-described as “two guys from southern Finland, soon to reach their midtwenties” – and ‘Landscapes Of Late’ is gorgeous live instrument-filled nu-chill groove.

We ran into Northbound through their oblique connections with the TPOLM demo-scene crew and IRC channel, and they explain of their project: “We have both been making music for about 4 years now, and collaborated almost from the very beginning. “Landscapes Of Late” is the first Northbound release, and also the first release for either of us. That’s beacause we didn’t want to release anything until we were even remotely satisfied with our sound. We’re both pretty much self-educated musicians, excluding Mikko’s few guitar&keyboard lessons as a kid.

They continue: “The EP was made in our livingroom studio, using cheap-ass guitars & bass & amplifiers & microphones, some other instruments and yes, computers. Our aim is to build songs around our own melodic & rhythmic ideas, and use samples to spice it all up. (in other words, we only tend to sample instruments that we have no idea how to play, or can’t possibly afford.)”

The results seem to have turned out just fine to us, with debut track ‘Forward’ starting as they mean to go on, all live groove and instrumental verve – a perfect blend of the electronic and acoustic jam. ‘Little Thieves’ is another highlight, almost cranking up the Orbital or John Barry connections for a looping piece of transcendental whimsy. The 6-track EP is rounded out by ‘Funny Stones’, which is all melodica and smarts, wrapping up one of the best Monotonik releases in a good while. (Full credits available on the Fthr-created back cover to the release.)

Credits:
pic by fthr

Tracklist:
01 – Forward
02 – Torches
03 – Little Thieves
04 – Dawn Stroll
05 – The Excuse
06 – Funny Stones

Artwork:
Front Cover
Back Cover

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Kuu – Ioplus EP {mtk170}

Artist: Kuu
Title: Ioplus EP
Label: Monotonik
Catalog #: mtk170
Release Date: 2006/08/27

This is, believe it or not, the first Monotonik release for Kuu (formerly known as Substance, and definitively known as Finland’s very own Joonas Vahamaki) since 1999 (!). But after a 7 year absence, we’re delighted to welcome him back to the fold with the awesome ‘Ioplus EP’, 4 tracks of beautifully crunchy IDM.

Since we last released music from him, he’s done a bunch of neat work for various labels, most recently returning to the breakbeat hardcore massif with fellow Finn Niko Virta and their duo Nervous & Anxious, which has releases on UK oldskool breakbeat labels like Enormous Mouse Records, Mert Wax and Hardcore Projectz. But this material is definitely Monotonik-ish, led off by the looping, almost cosmic ‘Io’.

There’s plenty more goodness in here too, though – ‘Rosa’ is all crunching beats and carefully rising and falling moods, much like the .MODs Joonas used to compose for us as Substance in the early days of Mono. Things finish out with ‘Pine’ and then ‘Bonus Track’, which is low profile and loopy and finally transcendental. Plenty of kicks, right?

Credits:
pic by Kuu

Tracklist:
01 – Io
02 – Rosa
03 – Pine
04 – Bonus Track

Artwork:
Front Cover

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