Monocle
Chances Glide
Hidden Shoal Recordings

Monocle is a Brooklyn-based cinematic-dream-pop combo; a quintet (?) I believe, steered by Rich Bennett - who's also got a solo career (as well as being involved with some other band projects). The bio from their myspace site goes: "...ten hands, textures and melodies, transistors and inner tubes, waves and fiberglass, alien moonlit dinners, harmonic tartar... band biology: keyboards, transistor organs, guitar saturation and dry intimacy, vox everywhere, drums and bass. Invented in 2005." The ten hands make five heads known as (still from myspace): "Ego: Rich, Matthew, Sunny, Dan, Max. Alter-Ego: Rich, Matthew, Annie, Blake, Max". Hidden Shoal describes "Chances Glide" as ...the sound of The Beach Boys as intergalactic cruise-ship band".

"Chances Glide" is a foretaste from their forthcoming long-player Transpacific Sound Paradise (to be released in May); a follow-up to their debut album Outer Sunset (2007). It's quite a long time between the two records, but Bennett has been occupied with his solo efforts as well, f.i. his Misty Valley. Bennett and his players - Matt Filler (guitar), Dan Shuman (bass), Max Goldman (drums), and Sunny Kim (vocals); well, this time backing vocals is added by Ana Breton (of Dead Leaf Echo, formerly of Mahogany) - have with "Chances Glide" come up with a shimmering, pulsating pop song which makes me recall 1980s band Japan fronted by David Sylvian. I'm not quite sure if this is my cup of tea. Maybe there should have been some more experimentation thrown in? Like one magazine described Outer Sunset: "... [it] manages to be avant-garde and accessible simultaneously...". I'll wait and see when the album comes.

Copyright © 2013 Håvard Oppøyen