Monogamy’
I’m trying to make the entire Almost Halloween Time Records catalog available for listening on Bandcamp. It’s a long process but it also gives me the opportunity to go back and talk about records that were released a few years ago.
“Semifloral” by Monogamy is one of these. Originally released in 2016, the ep is a corelease between AHT, Citizen Of The World Media and Side Wound Worship.
My introduction to Monogamy’s music came through the split cassette with Stars Are Insane on Rok Lok. It was 2013 or something and they have never left the orbit of my interests since then.
I try to grab each of their records and the band is invited to participate in all the new projects and compilations I work on.
Monogamy contributed a song to “Crock Rot”, a wonderful rendition of Simon Joyner’s “Hot Tears”, to “It’s Halloween Time” with “Last Year’s Costume”, a Halloween themed song, to “Imaginary Donkey” with a cover of “Cheap Sunglasses” by Human Hearts, to “Portraits From The Quarantine” with “Wimpy Drummer”, a song written especially for this project and to “Road To Istanbul” with a collaboration with Kiss Hello. Each time raising the bar more and more.
“Semifloral” is Monogamy’s debut on Almost Halloween Time Records.
Many have written about the record and all in positive terms:
– Isaac Levine on his own bandcamp page:
“”Semifloral” is one of the best things I’ve heard made in Ann Arbor since living here.”
– The Answer Is In The Beat:
“This is a fantastic slice of multi-tracked noise-pop, carrying on the spirit of Eric’s Trip and the Microphones/Mount Eerie for the current era of DIY music.”
– Half Gifts:
“Crunchy as dead foliage and just as warmly toned”
– Modern Vinyl: “this latest iteration of the Michigan project is hungrier for absolution, pairing lyrical scenes of holding rosaries with another baring sharp teeth, than accessible songwriting, but perhaps catharsis is designed to precede catchiness”
– Tiny Mix Tapes: “Semifloral smells like spinach. It looks like a black bologna disc in a paper supermarket bag. It sounds like the center of the earth.”
– Yellow Green Red: “I’m hearing the ghosts (and fresh corpses) of artists like Ween, John Maus, Lovesick, Girls Are Short and maybe even a little Flaming Lips, all with the frenzied slacker attitude you’d expect to find in some forgotten corner of a Sub Pop or Matador singles club in 1996.”
– Dead Formats: “a dark bedroom pop, psychedelic-infused marriage of Jonathan Richman, Calvin Johnson and Ariel Pink with a sort of enthusiasm that makes you want to run into house parties and hug every single drunk teenager and tell them it’s going to be okay.”
What could I possibly add about this 7″ and Monogamy that hasn’t already been said or written?
Don Lyons plays almost everything himself, including a sax solo and synths on “Twenty-Twenty”, but the contribution of his bandmates is enormous as it will become clearer in recordings following this.
Semifloral files under bizarre electro-pop, noise pop, manic and damaged synth-pop, miniature acoustic psychedelia, noisy, experimental-leaning indie-pop.
These songs could easily be included in a playlist that features Brainiac and Xiu Xiu without disfiguring.
