Give Me Monaco – From The Coral To The Grey

Give Me Monaco

There is a cool elegance to the beats on the debut Give Me Monaco album that belies the dancefloor capabilities and rhythmic intricacies of the tracks collected here. Their producer, Leigh Redding, has been striving to translate thoughts and feelings of singularity and twisting them together to make a cohesive whole from seemingly disparate elements.

From The Coral To The Grey has succeeded spectacularly in accomplishing this, leaving us with eight lengthy electronic tracks that veer from dancefloor euphoria to more insular but expansive pieces. The production is lovely, with each element making itself apparent but not overwhelming the others. Sometimes it doesn’t feel as though the ingredients should necessarily combine, but combine they do.

Leigh’s willingness to attempt reintegrating those disparate elements gives the pieces here a sense of the unique, rather than it ending up just as an album of the same basic idea minutely wavering over the playing time. Hence there is a feeling of a journey and the sense that the tracks inhabit different atmospheres or worlds; the fast kick drum and polyrhythmic steel band electronics of opener “Aftershow” has the feelgood vibe of a sunlit Ibiza morning and feels a far cry from the frosty hollow feeling of “Subtly”. It still moves, but it is crisper and sparer, and you can almost see the breath of the revellers in a wintry Polish warehouse. This change of scene and change of sensation continues throughout the album, but the desire to mix up light and shade, and to add textural extras to the tracks, means that there is something for those who would rather sit to one side and allow the music to envelop them.

“Walnut” has stabbing electronics and an attention-grabbing clash of a beat, while “Goose” pairs a soulful female vocal loop with jittery electronics, but I think the thing that surprised me the most was the yearning feel of “Satin”; there is a minor key keyboard line that tugs at the heartstrings just as you think that this is not necessarily going to touch you emotionally. The way it breaks away, leaving you bereft, and then returns once again is delightful and all the while the beat never stops pushing you.

After the ascetic simplicity of “Ply”, the final track “Sheen” cools things down and darkens the mood a little, its edginess highlighted by off-camera sounds and movement that flashes out of the corner of your vision. It is calmer but slightly unsettling, and an interesting way to finish off an album that is full of surprises and ultimately very satisfying.

-Mr Olivetti-