Our weekly fix of the best new indie music as Julia Mason brings us her reviews of Lack Of Afro and Monograms.
Artist: Lack of Afro
Track: All Night
Lack of Afro aka Adam Gibbons, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, DJ and composer. He has released new music with All Night the opening track from his forthcoming album Square One, set for release in September on his own Bastion Music Group imprint. It features the vocals of Jack Tyson-Charles and is a slice of soulful summer in a song. Gibbons shares the following on All Night:
“What a vibe! It's probably one of my favourite tracks that I've ever done. Jack and I hadn't worked together for nearly 10 years, but when we got together in the studio we were right back there and the magic happened.
“Musically it's certainly right up there with my best work and I'm really proud of the production. Sometimes, certain tracks just tick all those boxes and this is one of those”.
All Night oozes soul and as the golden vocals of Jack Tyson-Charles sing: "if you snooze, then you lose..."
Pure joy.
* * *
Artist: Monograms
Track: Carry The Weight
New York based Monograms aka Ian Jacobs has released his new single Carry the Weight. Any track that begins with screeching, speeding police sirens is going to grab the attention. Spiky synths, echoey impassioned vocals and a Joy Division style atmosphere continue to hold the listener. Carry the Weight is a song about overcoming the intensity of the world when its relentless traffic becomes all too much.
As Jacobs further explains: “I wrote Carry The Weight at a time about a year ago when I was really just taking everything on. Everything in my life: my past, my future, my present. While also taking on my day to day: you're tired, you're wide awake, you're horny, you're lazy, you're hungry, you're full, you have money, you're broke, you're happy, you're sad. Sometimes all that noise can be a bit too much of a buzz. Other days it's totally fine. The lyrics are specifically about how I have no idea where that weight goes when it goes away, or if it really does go away? How we overcome things, or why some things we internalize while other times we decide to unpack s**t to others to quiet the noise. But I realize most of the time that weight is just based on my mood or my perspective. I think a lot of other people are probably like that too.”
Lyrically Carry the Weight is littered with themes of architecture and morality, plans of reconstruction, and hopes for salvation. It finds Monograms restarting from the ground up and assessing the building blocks required:
“I had all this sort of strenuous work theme in the world I wanted to build for the lyrics. Like construction. Getting everything in line, getting a grip, scaffolding going up, making a plan, architecture, it's dirty, it's unfinished, there's rubble and unpaved cement everywhere. Themes of building blocks and tools… I think maybe it's about letting go of all that work and just knowing you're gonna be OK for a bit as is. It's also a bit of a 'I dunno' moment, cause I have no idea what's at work pulling the strings sometimes, if it's me or not. Control is a fickle beast.”
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