out now: Monolith – Crashed [HANDS]

Artist:
Monolith

Title:
Crashed

Label:
Hands Productions

Cat#:
HANDSD205

Release Date:
May 2014

Format:
CD & digital

Tracklist:
01)
No Escape

02)
Rotated

03)
Roadblock

04)
Dope Traps

05)
The Victim

06)
I Control Evolution

07)
Crashed

08)
Wired

09)
The Source

10)
Man Without Shadow

11)
10 Minutes Before Blackout

Press Info (English):
With Monolith an acknowledged veteran joins the HANDS label roster. “From Belgium to Berlin” – that’s not only Eric’s personal biography in short, it’s also the route that the sound he had its stakes in creating has taken: Partially club-compatible, entirely rhythmic and absorbing, this is premier league entertainment for contemporary electronic aficionados across the scenes, from the electro industrial underground onto the Berghain dance floor. It’s general knowledge that Eric van Wonterghem is a member of Absolute Body Control and Sonar, and that he has a notable past as Insekt, as well as under the Monolith moniker itself. On this behalf, “Crashed” is his 8th album already, and he can also look back at a string of live performances as well, forging his hypnotic and tribal rhythmic noise sound. This album shows the timeless facets of the “Belgian” sound that Eric van Wonterghem and his various fellow musicians have created over the last three decades, and that’s still newsworthy today: The icy, repetitive electro industrial sound, dominated by incisive rhythms with crashing cymbals and slight distortion, clinical and yet strangely warm and analogue has intrigued generations of underground music fans since its inception in the early 80s, and now it has arrived in the scene of Berlin, today’s minimal techno capital of the world, where it’s namechecked (and sometimes ripped off) by a new generation of producers. “Crashed” stands as good proof that Monolith is still capable of cutting-edge productions himself: A short, forbidding intro of static fuzz and swelling atmosphere (“No Escape”) and then 10 tight and rhythmic tracks. Some stand out as downright recommendations for the dance floor – following in the line of his recent vinyl 12” on Sonic Groove – like the rhythm noise/dub techno hybrid “Rotated”, the slightly EBM-ish “Crashed” and the hard-hitting “The Source”, while others draw from various other aspects: “Roadblock” is a raw, stomping boulder of sound, “The Victim” operates in rather purebred dub techno territory, “I Control Evolution” sounds rather klinik-al with its distorted 808 pattern and mock vocals. “10 Minutes before Blackout” finishes off an album that offers braindance and physical moments, done with expertise and a unique handwriting.

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