aaamusic | On 08, Dec 2010

Alex Monk is a musician and producer based in London, once described as a ‘fringe psychedelicist operating in the realms of concrete ambience’.  He has released two limited run CD-Rs to acclaim and plays shows regularly. Monk uses a range of sonic sources including mandolin, guitars, found sounds, his own voice (and others), keyboards and analogue and digital effects. Alex’s performances are often improvised, frequently using song and plainchant as the center-point; a means to invoke new melodies, mood and space during live performances.  His work has been compared to that of Moondog, Brian Eno, Roy Montgomery and Laurie Anderson.   

Recorded in South London between 2008 and 2010, new double album ‘The Safety Machine’ is Monk’s first vinyl release and is limited to just 300 copies and download – the digital version mastered by Mark Beazley known best for his work with Rothko. Though the free, hypnotic and repetitive approach to composition found on the first two releases is still apparent on ‘The Safety Machine’, the album is also interspersed with more popular forms of song, inspired by the rich compositional approach of Robert Wyatt and Franco Battiato.

Opening track ‘Masks Survive’ came to realisation late in the recording process, and although Monk had the melodic motif in mind for some time, it was never certain how this could be relised in a compositional framework until it fell in to place towards the end of the recording process. Throughout this beautifully envisioned record, a bleak and dark undercurrent is often palpable, most notably on tracks like ‘Much Further Out Than You Thought’, which mixes languorous instrumentation with faint, melancholic cries, evoking the freezing Winter spent in Monk’s South East London home recording that section of the record. ‘Walking with Beatrice’ recalls the otherworldly echoes of Grouper, originally recorded as an improvised piece to four-track tape, and then later edited to supreme effect. Elisa Gallo Rosso, a singer from Turin, Italy, now based in London, lends her ethereal voice to two pieces; both improvised. The track ‘Cabiria’ is inspired by the Fellini film of the same name, and ‘Crossing’, with its deathly breathing and organ loop, evokes traversing dread filled waters with Charon in Dante’s ‘Inferno’. Broken lament ‘Spiders’ furthers this ghostly premise, Monk’s resigned vocals only contributing to the song’s fragile beauty and the more minimalist organ based instrumental ‘Sammy’s Song’ is a eulogy to a lost loved one in childhood, much inspired by the delicate, yet warm innocence heard in Moondog’s work.  Closing track ‘1000 Ships To The Next Life’ summons what could only be described as a Viking funeral en-masse, exploring the transition to a final, secure resolution and the album’s close..

ALEX MONK

THE SAFETY MACHINE

Release Title: The Safety Machine
Format: Vinyl | Digital Album
Label: Smeraldina-Rima
Catalogue Number: Smeraldina-Rima 17
Release Date: 10th January 2011

Track listings:
1. Masks Survive
2. All My Voices
3. Much Further Out Than You Thought
4. Walking With Beatrice
5. Cabiria (feat. Elisa Gallo Rosso)
6. Light Separation
7. The Ocean You Chose
8. Spiders
9. Crossing (feat. Elisa Gallo Rosso)
10. Sammy’s Song
11. I Can Hear Your Heart Through The Breeze
12. Vathek
13. 1000 Ships To The Next Life

Artist Links: http://www.myspace.com/alexmonk http://www.alexandermonk.com/