Monosov, Ilya & The 21st Century Punks – “New Music” – [Holy Mountain]

Max Level   8/30/2009   12-inch, A Library

A weird trip. Ilya Monosov & the 21st Century Punks is pretty much Ilya Monosov solo, using an anything-goes approach to assemble audio collages. There are a few guests (including Monosov’s frequent collaborator Preston Swirnoff) but they only do a small bit here and there. The journey goes something like this: A1 is a not-unpleasant rhythmic minor-chord drone with guitars and basses and sampled stuff on top. A2 is titled “Tropical Relaxation” but it’s tense, noisy, and complex; not my favorite way to relax. In B1 we hear a repeating Philip Glass-like melodic figure, but it’s constantly interrupted by glitchy stuff, low voices, and beats. It all comes together, more or less, toward the end, although the whole thing is still sort of messy. B2 has world-music-type percussion and throbbing bass and a trumpet and more of those creepy low voices. A weird record but I like it.