The Monthly Playlist For May 2024
May 31, 2024
CHOICE TRACKS FROM THE LAST MONTH, CHOSEN BY DOMINIC VALVONA/MATT OLIVER/BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA
Representing the last 31 days’ worth of reviews and recommendations on the Monolith Cocktail, the Monthly Playlist is our chance to take stock and pause as we remind our readers and flowers of all the great music we’ve shared – with some choice tracks we didn’t get room or time to feature but added anyway.
Virgin Vacation ‘RED’
The Johnny Halifax Invocation ‘Thank You’
Chris Corsano ‘The Full-Measure Wash Down’
Essa/Pitch 92 Ft. Kyza, Klashnekoff, Tony D., Reveal, Doc Brown, Perisa, Devise, Nay Loco ‘Heavyweight$’
Hus KingPin ‘Tical’
Nana Budjei ‘Asobrachie’
Amy Rigby ‘Dylan In Dubuque’
The Garrys ‘Cakewalk’
La Luz ‘Always In Love’
Bloom De Wilde ‘Ride With The Fishes’
El Khat ‘Tislami Tislami’
Gabriel Abedi ‘Bra Fie’
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly ‘TURBULENCIA’
Red Hot Org, Laraaji, Kronos Quartet, Sun Ra ‘Daddy’s Gonna Tell You No Lie’ (THIS MONTH’S COVER ART)
King Kashmere, Alecs DeLarge, HPBLK, Booda French, Ash The Author ‘Astro Children (Remix)’
Oddisee ‘Live From The DMV’
Amy Aileen Wood ‘Time For Everything’
Low Leaf ‘Innersound Oddity’
Jake Long ‘Celestial Soup’
Jonathan Backstrom Quartet ‘Street Dog’
Gordan ‘Sara’
Cuntroaches ‘III’
Morgan Garrett ‘Alive’
Cadillac Face ‘I Am The Monster’
Tucker Zimmerman ‘Advertisement For Amerika’
Poppycock ‘Magic Mothers’
Little Miss Echo ‘Hit Parade’
Olivier Rocabois ‘Stained Glass Lena’
Ward White ‘Slow Sickness’
Lightheaded ‘Always Sideways’
The Tearless Life w/ Band Of Joy ‘The Leaving-Light’
Michal Gutman ‘I’m The Walker’
Malini Sridharan ‘Beam’
Micha Volders & Miet Warlop ‘Hey There Turn’
Copywrite, Swab ‘Vibe Injection’
Napoleon Da Legend, DJ Rhettmatic ‘The King Walk’
Dabbla, JaySun, DJ Kermit ‘No Plan’
Gyedu-Blay Ambolly ‘Apple’
Brother Ali, unJUST ‘Cadillac’
Hometown Heros, DJ Yoda, Edo. G, Brad Baloo ‘What You Wanna Do’
Cities Aviv ‘Style Council’
Illangelo ‘The Escape’
Mofongo ‘Manglillo’
Aquaserge ‘Sommets’
Xqui, David Ness ‘The Confessions Of Isobel Gowdie’
Conrad Schnitzler ‘Slow Motion 2’
Noemi Buchi ‘Window Display Of The Year’
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
OUR FRIENDS AT Kalporz BRING OUR ATTENTION TO A NEW BAND
AUTHORED BY Nicola Guerra TRANSLATED BY Dominic Valvona
Continuing our successful collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz , the Monolith Cocktail shares and translates reviews, interviews and other bits from our respective sites each month. Keep an eye out for future ‘synergy’ between our two great houses as we exchange posts during 2024 and beyond. This month regular Kalporz Nicola Guerra introduces us to the noise of cacophony Berlin trio Cuntroaches, who released their debut album back in February.
Cuntroaches ‘S-T’
(Skin Graft)
The name would be enough to include them among the groups that make chaos a reason for living.
Then you listen to these 30 minutes at full volume while life goes on normally around you, and you’ve already fallen in love with it.
Because how can you not love those who commit terrorism without killing anyone? How can you not love those who, in a world of people who are set and all the same, decide to set up a refuge of noise to isolate themselves from it?
Still me and my clique of (music) junkies ask ourselves why we are increasingly attracted to this.
It’s not music. The melody is practically non-existent. Cacophony under the pitch black blanket of noise.
A German trio making their debut that is intimidating to watch.
No, it’s not the attraction towards something ever more extreme, it’s the ability to deal with discomfort by doing something.
Here, it is the action of these groups that makes everything more true.
And taking action is always better than living passively.
SCORE: 77/100
Premiere (track): Yonic South ‘On’
May 8, 2020
Premiere/Dominic Valvona
Yonic South ‘On’
(La Tempesta Dischi) Taken from the upcoming Twix & Dive EP/14th May 2020
Almost sweet and breezy in its cause static fuzz, busy shimmered bed of cymbals and chewed up slacker guitars, today’s premiere teaser showcases an earlier, more naïve, heart-on-the-sleeve incarnation of the Italian switcheroo Sonic Youth mischief makers, Yonic South. Taken from the upcoming new EP, Twix & Dive (which, as the title might suggest, is at least partially a fascination with the famous chocolate caramel bar), ‘On’ strikes a dang chord before slipping into a yearning howl of scuzzy, bending lo fi.
Following up on last year’s debut EP Wild Cobs, the garage punk agitators have already gone nostalgic with their latest record; going back, as they have, to the heady early days; back before they corralled, current, drummer ‘Johnny Lad’ into the band. Twix & Dive is made up of both brash post-punk derangements and more dwindling C86 Anglophile guitar dirges: the sound of a band finding their sonic calling you could say.
With an interest for UK culture of the 90s and 2000s, the Italian troupe of members from the Bee Bee Sea and Miss Chain & The Broken Heels fraternity, turn in a raucous garage punk rumble of Oasis’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, and pen a hypnotic Hooky bassline imbued grinding tribute to one of Anfield’s finest, Steven Gerrard (now, interesting fact, managing my own preferred Glasgow club of Rangers). Just one of many fascinations – previous popular culture icons of fun include the viral Techno Viking – an obsession with Liverpool football club results in a eulogy like track suffused with the sound of the Kop ringing out as the anointed footballer reads a farewell message to the stands.
For those unfamiliar with the Yonic South’s fanaticism and surreal humour, their sound is a cacophony of Thee Oh Sees, Black Lips, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Country Teasers and Swell Maps.
Their prolific touring schedule has seen them deliver riotous live performances around their native Italy and on a recent European tour, which saw them share stages with the likes of King Khan, Preoccupations, and Warmduscher.
For your aural displeasures, the Monolith Cocktail presents teaser, ‘On’.
https://soundcloud.com/yonic_south/onys
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 