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monster movie (grave012)
Two facts inevitably come up when introducing any new release by Monster Movie. The first being the genealogy of their band name, most likely a reference to the title of the debut album by the then Malcolm Mooney fronted incarnation of krautrock mega-legends, Can. The second fact, slightly more relevant to discussing the band’s work, is that Monster Movie features Christian Savill, former member of shoegazing pioneers Slowdive. While other Slowdive ex-members Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell have continued to put out material on mega-indie 4AD for the last few years, both in the form of twangy mope-rock outfit Mojave 3 and as solo artists, Savill’s half-decade long collaboration with songwriting partner Sean Hewell has remained a slightly more obscured gem of the indie-underground. Transistor is perhaps another step away from what could only be the mixed blessing-curse of being constantly associated with a ground-breaking act like Slowdive, The stylistic shifts Monster Movie has gone through in the past five years have been profound, as the dark dream-pop of their earliest days has turned up the pop a notch or two, while rarely sacrificing the “dark.” The band’s Claire Records debut and subsequent 2002 split CD with Dreamend on Graveface were both, if one wants to draw a somewhat facile comparison, fairly Slowdive-ish. But it’d be more accurate to liken Monster Movie’s earliest output to Heaven or Las Vegas-era Cocteau Twins – not so much in sound as in spirit. With songs like “Beautiful Artic Star” and “Nobody Sees” off the split being nothing short of trance-inducing, Savill’s vocals so drenched with effects and reverberation they make your stomach drop, hitting you right in the guts, maybe right next to the place where Elizabeth Fraser’s do when she’s warbling out the “Cherry-Coloured Funk.” But 2004’s To The Moon switches things up a great deal, effectively responding with a negative to the question “Does he sound like that when he talks, with all the reverb and whatnot?” The two tracks from the split are reworked with a bit of the vocal effects stripped off, to reveal Savill’s voice as lush and passionate without all the fuzz obfuscating it, nearly Morrissey-esque in its throatiness. Though “Sweet Lemonade,” To The Moon’s superlative opener, is the hallmark of the band’s potential, skillfully navigating pure indie-pop bliss in a way that most newer acts tend to miss out on entirely. Transistor, as a followup, explores more brooding territory than that traversed throughout To The Moon. Beginning with a darkly expressive manifesto, “The Collapse” whispers in a broken electronic voice, “this is Transistor, this is the sound of our souls,” before leaping into 40 some seconds of the kind of cinematic piano you might expect out of, well, Mojave 3. But if there’s a hint of that unique UK fascination with ingratiating a country twang into melancholy pop that Mojave tends to embrace so wholeheartedly, it plays second or third fiddle to the soft ethereal blare of the music and the simmeringly sad voice of guest vocalist Rachel Staggs. Though fuzzed-out drones don’t necessarily dominate the disc, the icy lament of “Chances Are High” shows Monster Movie as melancholy as ever, driven by understated, chiming guitars instead of blaring ones. “Letting You Know” manages to magically merge ringing pop with resonating drone, creating something vaguely evocative of Jesus and Mary Chain softened to a wistful lullaby. Perhaps the one largely lamentable fact about Transistor is that Savill’s vocals remain underused, and don’t seem to reach the heights they did on To The Moon material. Granted, there’s only so much you can fit into seven tracks, but Savill’s voice at its least unassuming would complement Staggs’s gut-wrenching minimalism. Make no mistake, though, Transistor functions well as a mini-album, with the shorter, less perceptible tracks bridging gaps between seriously moving pop tunes. The sounds of Monster Movies’ souls continue, with Transistor, to be beautiful and tear-jerking ones.
I'm studying Russian. A bit. It hasn't been that complicated so far. I know how to say '"hello", "I", "passport", "no" and "yes." It's funny but in retrospect i think i should have chosen Chinese, I really like the complaining sound in the language. So, there i am, repeating words over and over again and i stumble on this record i received a while ago. It's from the graveface label, well-known for making great cover designs for the records they release. The music is not bad either(!) This time it's noisy/acoustic pop with longing synths and a girl singing in the distance! and it's an embossed golden russian etching on red paper, with something written under it, i've read it and even though i have no idea what it means it reads "iaz-tchieskiie piesni o lioubvi"! It sounds a bit like Yo La Tengo which is great, and it's good too. "Chances Are High" and "Letting you Know" are cool noisy pop songs. "Left" is reminiscent of Low when they sound like they're Yo La Tengo playing a soft song. "Summer Is A-Coming" sounds halfway between Yo La Tengo and a less polished Air. It's a really good mini album, definitely worth paying attention to.
Gotta say something about the packing because you know I'm a sucker for a well-put-together piece. This is lovely. The CD comes in a red cardboard case with gold lettering. At times the font is hard to read because it's small, but it's very pretty. We open with what sounds like Steven Hawking (but we all know it's the computer voice simulator) saying, "This is transistor, this is the sound of our souls…" then it melds into a lovely song that reminds me of the Cocteau Twins, or Belle & Sebastian. This CD is a collection of very mellow, ambient, lush, music with moody, echoic vocals. Lush harmonies sung in whispery tones. The rest of the CD follows suit. This is very peaceful chilling out music. If you like the above-mentioned bands along with Club 8 and the like, it's a sure bet you'll like Monster Movie as well. Check them out.
Okay, so 2005 is underway, so here’s the difficult question: are the records we get to hear in January but that were released in December contenders for picks of 2004 or 2005? Some years of course that question doesn’t really apply, but this time I’m asking it because I’ve just been falling in love with the Transistor set by Monster Movie. This arrived just a day or two ago from the fine people at Graveface records, but already it’s burrowed its way into the depths of my soul. Graveface, of course, is the label responsible for giving us the last record by the peerless Black Moth Super Rainbow and the awesome Dreamend As If By Ghosts set, so maybe its no surprise that they should proffer up this gem of gently psychedelic space-folk. Maybe no surprise either that there is a former member of Slowdive in the Monster Movie mix. Not that I ever liked Slowdive, you understand (not for lack of trying, either, but for me they always seemed to lack a certain spark of something elusive to mark them out from the rest of that shoegazer crowd. I even picked up their recent Catch The Breeze retrospective double CD set the other week. Despite several listens it still resolutely failed to grab me). |
