Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: [Scoutcloud] Metaphysical, dreamlike: the sonic surrealism of the mysterious Russian musician Mitka
February 7, 2023
Exchanging posts with our Italian penpals at Kalporz
For those new readers/followers in 2023, the Monolith Cocktail has collaborated with the leading Italian culture/music site and festival Kalporz over the last few years. Each month we exchange posts from our respective sites. This month Monica Mazzoli introduces us, via the long-running [Scoutcloud] series, to the “metaphysical” surrealism of Mitka.
An aura of mystery surrounds the biography of Mitka. The sound engineer and musician from Ekaterinburg who works mainly for the film industry, does not give live concerts and is absent from social media having an almost ascetic lifestyle, at least so the press release reads release of his record company DiG Records. The cover of her Sound2 record, by Alina Vinogradova is dreamlike, metaphysical; so much so that it could very well be a surrealist painting by Remedios Varo. The music of the Russian artist is equally so, all the five songs on the album traveling beyond six minutes and sounding like a sort of hallucinated, visionary folk music: it seems that Mitka, for example, has recorded the sounds of drums in the forest, and built his own guitar. Beyond reality: the sense of mystery/dream prevails.
COLLABORATION
WORDS: Monica Mazzoli
Over the last few years the Monolith Cocktail has been sharing a post each month with the leading Italian culture/music site Kalporz. This month Monica Mazzoli scouts out the sounds of the burgeoning artist, Leoni Leoni.
Bongo Joe Records of Geneva is one of those independent record labels (also a record shop) to always keep an eye on. In June 2022 a new release arrives that promises to be interesting and will make Leoni Leoni , musician, singer and producer from Bern better known to a wider audience: on vinyl and CD a collection dedicated to the Swiss underground artist who in recent years, between 2019 and 2021, produced a series of homemade cassettes: SUPER SLOW, EASY SLEEP, Yellow and Why, Drum Problems. The Bongo Joe compilation collects some of the songs already published on these cassettes where Leoni Leoni experiments with the deconstructed pop song form as if it were the memory, the dream of something else.
To discover.
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: [Scoutcloud] The outside-the-box funk-soul of Karate Boogaloo
September 9, 2020
New Music Tip
Words: Monica Mazzoli
Continuing with our collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz a short summer break, the Monolith Cocktail will be cosying up and sharing 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.
This month Monica Mazzoli scouts out the Melbourne indie-funk-soul oddities Karate Boogaloo.
It’s “retromania” times: we know that. There are those who, however, in referring back to the past manage not to expire in the most pedantic revival. This is the case of the Melbourne funk-soul scene, which revolves around bands like Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, Pro-Teens and a small totally DIY record label – the College Of Knowledge Records – founded by Lachlan Stuckey and Jethro Curtin (guitarist and keyboardist of Surprise Chef respectively).
The sound is obviously analogue, of course, of tape recordings, but the approach to making music is out of the box: the already mentioned Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo – the two bands that are the soul of the label – collaborate, exchange musicians, record tracks in the home studio (even the artwork of the records), do everything by themselves. They have a mentality open to any sound contamination and unconventional writing. In other words, Carn The Boogers – the first Karate Boogaloo album released in May 2020 – comes after two mixtapes (KB’S Mixtape No.1 and KB’S Mixtape No.2) in which the band had fun reinterpreting songs that have been sampled in classic hip hop and pop (to be listened to absolutely “Tour de France”).
On the new album the songs are all autographed, but the wanderer spirit of the groove continues: in the new tracks – all instrumental (as usual) – the band dances like a juggler on rhythm, without ever falling, always on the piece. The five minutes of ‘Space Language’ are perhaps the apotheosis of this musical trip. A funk-soul with surfing in the heart.
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: [Scoutcloud] Brainstory
January 13, 2020
NEW MUSIC DISCOVERY
Words: Monica Mazzoli
Continuing in 2020 with our collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz, the Monolith Cocktail will be cosying up and sharing 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.
The first Kalporz post of the year is taken from the site’s [Scoutcloud] column; searching out and discovering new bands.
Here’s a little reminder of the Kalporz background:
Kalporz writes about music, with his own musical vision, since 2000.
Kalporz is a careful observer of news, trends, emerging scenes, but without chasing the dominant taste: he is in search of “beautiful things”. He hopes to publish articles well written and carefully, in an original way, without filters and, of course, independently.
The editorial project is under the Creative Commons regime (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IT) and in 2018 it was voted as the best Italian music site by the Meeting of Independent Labels (MEI) and Musicletter (https://www.musicletter.it/index.php/2018/08/27/kalporz-e-reverendo-lys-vincono-la-targa-mei-musicletter-2018-premio-speciale-a-umbria-jazz-come-miglior-festival-musicale-italiano/).
The Kalporz family is composed of the founder Luca Vecchi, the editors Paolo Bardelli,Monica Mazzoli, Piero Merola, Enrico Stradi, Matteo Mannocci, Gianluigi Marsibilio, and about twenty other collaborators, as well as three photographers.
The collaborators are from all parts of Italy, even if the main base of Kalporz is between Reggio Emilia, a town near the “famous” Canossa, the Adriatic Sea and Florence.
Brainstory music has rhythm and heart. In a word: a groove.
Kevin Martin, Tony Martin and Eric Hagstrom – the three souls of the band – form a trio all soul, jazz and psychedelic. After two mini albums – Brainstory Presents: A Natural Phantasm (2015) and Brainstory (2017) – comes the band from Rialto’s (California) longplayer debut. Buck (2019), the band’s first release by Big Crown Records, the Californian line-up lays bare as never before, putting down its musical spirituality, naked and pure. “Buck naked”, on the other hand, means “naked as a worm” in English. The songs of Buck are all stripped of artificial frills; they are “pop”, directed to the point, to the soul of the melody and rhythm: Soul in spirit.
Monica Mazzoli
Monolith Cocktail Blog 