Since the early 2000s, Mono's music has balanced on the razor's edge between darkness and light. The dynamic between tension, release, and transcendence, woven through powerful textures, effects, and profound musicality, has always set them apart. Heaven, Vol. 1 was composed and recorded as the first of an annual series of Christmas EPs; its music reflects the optimism, hope, and joy of the season. Mono recorded these three tracks as much for themselves as fans: They are a respite, a small space flooded with light to ...
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Since the early 2000s, Mono's music has balanced on the razor's edge between darkness and light. The dynamic between tension, release, and transcendence, woven through powerful textures, effects, and profound musicality, has always set them apart. Heaven, Vol. 1 was composed and recorded as the first of an annual series of Christmas EPs; its music reflects the optimism, hope, and joy of the season. Mono recorded these three tracks as much for themselves as fans: They are a respite, a small space flooded with light to reflect gratitude, love, and connection amid constant global crises.Over three tracks and 20 minutes, Mono deliver. Each of these jams bears the band's indelible aesthetic signature. "Lucia" was composed to celebrate the birth of a child. Its ten-minute run time commences with a wonky, warm, keyboard loop and a church organ before a languid slide guitar plays a lilting, circular melodic fragment atop an elegant, syncopated drum kit shuffle. Electronics and glitches add depth and distortion as the music's movement evolves from blissful celebration to an overdriven back half that explodes dramatically, reflecting possibility, hope, and dreams. At under four minutes, "Smile" is an interlude that bridges the bookend cuts. Its soft pianos and gently swooping synth pattern are padded with ambient electronics, a processional drum shuffle and the sound of a toy piano underscoring the intimacy of the winter season. Closer and single "Silent Embrace" offers ghost traces of that toy piano in a whispered intro before a conventional piano emerges with the tune's circular eight-note vamp. As drums carry the time, a plodding bass frames strummed electric and acoustic guitars as the piano moves the theme up the keyboard. The repetition here is a narrative device, signifying the hills and valleys of life itself. The guitars and atmospheric electronics are underscored by a study drum kit shuffle that buoys the musical swirl and represents gratitude for friends, loved ones, and inspirations along the way. Heaven, Vol. 1 reveals Mono's deliberate decision to abandon the balance of tension between darkness and light doesn't mean there's lack of drama, after all, it's an inherent part of their collective creative process. It's simply that drama here reflects the abundance of sonic and musical possibilities even when traveling one way: Toward inextinguishable light. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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