BIOGRAPHY
It started with a chance comment in an interview for Mike Monday's debut album, Smorgasbord - an IDJ album of the year, a "classic" in One Week to Live, and "an LP [DJ mag] couldn't put down".
- Why didn't you use vocalists? Monday was asked.
- Because producers use vocalists when they aren't ambitious enough, Monday replied. They think they can't do real emotion without words. I think that's crap. Anything you can feel, you can convey in music. And better, the listener can pull a lot more personal meaning out of an instrumental than a set of lyrics...
Hence Monday's second album, Songs Without Words. Two years on from that first spark at the interview, it's an album with exactly one tiny vocal snippet across the whole platter. But it's got the broad emotional and experimental charge you get from the best electronic albums, and which you'll never get from the third-grade poetry of song-based rock and indie.
From moody, detailed stoner soundscapes to purely experimental electronica to the sly and silly funk for which Monday was known in the past, Songs is a long way from Monday's debut - and a hell of a long way from Monday's early days as a purely dancefloor producer.
It's a pick-and-mix approach also reflected in his upcoming live show. Drawing on Monday's background as a saxophonist and a desire to go "well past the laptop", Monday's live gigs next year will incorporate Heath-Robinson-like synth contraptions driven by a saxophone, a band of bald men in glasses, and the showmanship of Monday's first band - one of the first live house acts, Beat Foundation, which disbanded in the 90s went Andy Cato left to form Groove Armada.
And that's alongside Catnip - a set of cartoons accompanying the album. Drawn and animated by Drunkpark (Seb Godfrey and Joe Hamilton), they hark back to the innocence of San Francisco cartooning in the 60s. It's a wide-eyed, slapstick blue version of Mike Monday and his adventures in the world of the album artwork of Songs Without Words - angry cats that want feeding, guitar synths that fly, and a mad psychedellic world of clouds, trees and a moon that all talk. (The first episode is available from myspace.com/magicmikemonday, with three more to come through the album launch period.)
So it's got a sense of humour - which puts it far from electronica's usual monotony. But it's also the most serious, committed European electronica acts who support Monday's attempts to pull electronica out of its dance-focused rut. With fans from Kiki to Tiefschwarz, Will Saul to Falko Brocksieper, MANDY to incredible support from Laurent Garnier ("I love the personality of Mike's music"), not to mention playing regularly in San Francisco with Claude vonStroke, with fellow wonk god Jesse Rose - and being one of few acts recently asked to remix the Classic Records catalogue by its founder Luke Solomon.
And then there's his own gigs - regular slots at Watergate, at the supercool Terrassa boat parties in Paris, across Europe and with constant tours of Australia, Asia and the US - all on the back of huge early techno and house hits behind him like What Day is it? and Tooting Warrior (top 10 in the German dance charts) ...
Well, as IDJ says, "pretty much every week you hear someone new trying to inpersonate the Mike Monday sound..." - but now Monday himself has broken the mould, and his new album pushes him firmly into the same electronic mainstream as Trentmoller, Royksopp and the Knife.
CAT OM299 OUT EARLY OCT
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QUOTES
PRAISE FOR TRACKS FROM MIKE MONDAY'S UPCOMING 'SONGS WITHOUT WORDS PART 1'
Laurent Garnier -"What i always love about Mike Monday is that he always have a lot of personality in his music. This is another great one from him. Will support as always!"
Lee Van Dowski - "playing 11 11. good job."
Mark Henning - "hello nest is wicked! is that out already?"
Tom Pooks - "very good track this hello nest !!!!"
Mark Knight - "Hello Nest is my pick here, awesome groove & energy"
Justin Martin - "loving loving loving The 11 11.... very sick shit"
Master H - "So glad to see that UR album gonna be release soon and what a release......I've had a carefull listening and i really like the minimalist Hello Nest really well produced but the one really do me is The11 11 so nice and great build up all the way long nice drums and perc well done. Support and respect"
Cass - "Lovin both the tracks, with Nest probably winning out just by a nose."
Simon Baker (Infant/Playhouse) - "reckon that will work the floors for sure ! !"
Dirt Crew - "really like the 11 11. funky!"
Giles Smith (Secretsundaze / Two Armadillos) - "11 11 Sounds like a cool track - fresh and different with a cool bassline"
Peter Kruder - "Tight Stuff!!!! Wicked....both tunes."
Milton Jackson (Freerange/Urban Torque) - "these are both amazing"
ANDY CATO (Groove Armada)- "QUALITY MUSIC. FULL SUPPORT"
Funk D'Void - "tested it out 3 times...everytime fucking rocked!"
Rainer Weichold (Great Stuff, Germany) - "huge freaky shit"
LUKE SOLOMON - "Played both sides at his Rekids album launch party at Panoramabar in Berlin, and ended up saying that Hello Nest was his musical highlight of the night. crikey."
CLAUDE VON STROKE - "Will play this for sure doooooood!"
MAZI (AUDIO SOUL PROJECT) - "Really feeling 'The 11 11'. The groove, the build, the distorted piano in the middle all are sick!"
MASON - "The 11 11 rockssss!"
James Masters (Rekids) - "Thanks for the track - it's a killer!"
STYLE OF EYE - "I can't wait to hear your next album, this is a massive release!! both sides are great, looking forward to playing it out!"
KAROTTE (Cocoon) - "i like the " hello nest" track. Will play this"
SIMON RIGG (owner and manager of Phonica) - "Really like the A side"
Will Saul : "The 11 11 is the pick of the bunch for me though. Fandabidoso.
Hello Nest is also Fab (great name by the way) - love the big throbbing pad
- will play this loads (see I'm not as gay as you thought)."
Ralph Lawson - "Really like Hello Nest!"
Dan Cat - "in awe of them"
Falko Brocksieper - "the tracks u sent me are WICKED!!"
Tim Paris - "the 11 11 is Hot hot hot. great tune, great production, i love it !"
Tim Sheridan - "All wonderful!!"
Tomas Barford/Tomboy (Get Physical etc)- "great great stuff you sent me....such a fat sound..."
Tommy Four Seven - "BAD ASS!!"
Basti Tiefschwarz - "Glug Glug dub is good for me."
Kiki - "I am plankton"? ha ha, excellent! Love the "glug glugs", but hope it doesn't start a new minimal-sub-genre ;)"
Jimpster - "Deep in the Marine Biology sense of the word. Love it!"
Llorca - "Supa funky bass, supa swinging beat! Lovin it!"
Jeff Samuel - "Wow, I Am Plankton is totally weird! Cheers to Monday for trying something new!"
Luke Solomon - "This is hot hot hot funk!"
Touche - "Original and fresh sounding."
Onionz - "Salieri Complex is ill!"
Hector Romero - "Love me some Mike Monday and here he doesn't let me down! Salieri Complex and I Am Plankton."
Jose Gonazalo - (DeeJay Magazine Spain) - "Mike Monday sound is far from the hype, but is perfect for underground dancefloors."
PRAISE FOR SMORGASBORD, MIKE MONDAY'S DEBUT
"A player of the year, album of the month, and one of the albums of the year" - IDJ
"An LP we just can't put down" - DJ
"One of the finest electronic albums this side of Playgroup [..] a classic" - One Week to Live
"House music that stretches the imagination without losing the ability to rock the dancefloor" - Mixmag
"[Mike Monday and Playtime Records are] one of the 100 reasons dance music still rules" - IDJ
MUSIC
Hannah Holland - BANSHEE - with Mike Monday mix...
It's Banshee, by BuggedOut and Trailer Trash's Hannah Holland, London's queen of batty bass. It's a slinky, knowing nod to the rave - but not as you knew it - with a deeper, more overwhelming Mike Monday mix ...
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