NEWS

Rooms Delayed (aka Vincenzo Nazzaro, Italian musician) draws trajectories exploring the deepest folds of the soul through merging sounds that fade into one another. Its poetic melodies and captivating, albeit mild, sense of melancholy guide the listener into a land where colors, shapes and landscapes slowly come to life.

After the EPs So I Can Feel Through the Trees, A Day in my Room and various collaborations, last summer he creates Nothing Lighter, in which guitars, e-bow, delay, reverbs, field recordings and, sometimes, vocals develop a dialogue that engages the listener into enlightening visions and memories. Rooms Delayed conceives a real soundscape in which, beyond the sense of space and time, we could easily find elements that become instruments of perception towards a new inner vision where we will freely wander. From the collaboration with musician and singer Cristina Pullano, he gave birth to the first single release Mia (featuring a video directed by videomaker Domenico Bizarro) and Suspicious Mind.

Nothing Lighter represents a suspension, a hope that something new and incredibly liberating can be found. Since certain things can be experienced only through listening, we have to be prepared for the unexpected.
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After being involved in various bands and musical projects for more than a decade, releasing albums and playing hundreds of shows all over Europe, Finnish songwriter Robin Pahlman feels like he is only getting started.

Robin was born and raised in the small coastal town of Pargas, Finland. He has played with various musical outfits and has explored genres ranging from punk rock to bluegrass.

Following the breakup of his long-term band Agent Kooper, Robin stored away his band equipment and moved to Seattle, WA. By chance, he came across an old, beat-up acoustic guitar at the flea market. Inspired by the instrument’s quirks and limitations, he challenged himself to step out of his musical comfort zone in order to take his songwriting to the next level. While studying American literature and mapping out the city and the breathtakingly beautiful nature of the Pacific Northwest on foot, songs about space, place, and travel were born.

After relocating again – via Helsinki, Finland, to Vienna, Austria – Robin spent most of his time in his modest home studio, recording demos with the intention to produce his debut solo album. After writing and recording music on his own for about a year, he assembled a live ensemble with three local musicians, and played the first show with the new backing band Ghost Town in early 2013.

Robin makes his own blend of folk rock and pop, and his music has been likened to acts such as Iron and Wine, Ray LaMontagne, and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

Introducing the remarkable debut album, Barnegat, by Nebraskan resident, TDeL2 aka Tony de Luca. Featuring lush cinematic instrumentation, massive synth sounds, subtle guitars and understated vocals, the album deftly embraces electro pop, post-rock and ambient, marking the arrival of a promising new artist on the electronic scene.

Blog acclaim for TDeL’s first single Fearless Youth

“I can’t wait to see where TDeL2’s journey takes him.” Your Neon Heart

“You are transported over the rolling soundscapes of lush electro-indie into a warm fuzz of the last summer days. Your view is unobstructed for miles, there is hope after all, life is good. Smile.” Indie Dunes

“This guy’s music really stood out from the crowd.” Outersound Undergroud

“Think Royksopp duetting with Jose Gonzalez with some vocoder heavy but subdued vocals and a wistful, almost tender vibe and you’re pretty much there.” Listen with Monger

“The remarkable song Fearless Youth… it´s a don´t miss.” Kentucky Seven

“TDeL2, aka Tony DeLuca, has found a sound we can get behind with Fearless Youth. It’s lovely, enchanting, and just beautiful. “ My Noise Spinning

Dance Dark at the Dead Disco is the second single to be released from Graveyard Love’s forthcoming EP, Disassociate. Preorder here

This music video features a mixture of subtle horror and prom movie references made on a shoestring budget in a nondescript hall somewhere in West Auckland, New Zealand.

With themes and ideas pulled from Thriller, Kairo Ghost and Silent Hill through to 80’s prom movies and Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ this video draws from many influences. The ‘dead disco’ is intended to be anywhere, be it a hall, a gym, a church or simply memory of your first intermediate school dance. As the silhouetted band play as a back drop to beautiful but ghoulish dances, the driving bass and drums of this song create haunting but danceable arrangement of visuals and sound. The song “Dance Dark at the Dead Disco” in itself seems to be a homage to grinding zombie flicks and that desolate memory of vacant halls when everyone’s gone. While this video references the cliche, it does so in a slightly ironic manner; remaining genuine enough to convey the dark tonality of the song and in Graveyard Love’s music.

Monkey Records is proud to announce the release of Roundabout, the debut album by Berlin-based indie-pop trio The Major Pins featuring German-born Katharina Garden (vocals, piano), Paul B Keeves from Birmingham (bass) and Henry Grant from New York (drums).

Having formed The Major Pins in 2007 in Berlin after studying music in the Netherlands and meeting her first band members at Popkurs in Hamburg, Kat decided in 2011 to record her first album, teaching herself how to do it at home with her granny´s honkey-tonk piano and singing under a blanket for an intimate sound (but also to keep the neighbours from knocking on her walls). Bass and drums were then recorded at Phil Freeborn’s Studio Kreuzberg and a bunch of friends helped out with violin, cello, guitar, clavichord, trumpet, glockenspiel and backing vocals.

Once she had recorded and produced the 12 tracks herself she brought on board Yensin Jahn, working at former Planet Roc and legendary GDR-broadcast studios by Berlin´s Spree. Yensin, who has also worked with Calexico, Lambchop, Get Well Soon and Mia, put together all the pieces of the puzzle and mixed the piano, Moog and Bontempi based alternative indie-pop album Roundabout.

Kat writes the music to be arranged in the trio. Her lyrics deal with personal experiences as well as inspiration from novels, movies or documentaries. Naked Slug for instance deals with the recent issue of chemtrails and geo-engineering, whereas Robots (the first single) is inspired by H. Murakami´s novel Kafka at the Shore. In her eyes being a songwriter gives an opportunity to handle socio-critical themes without preaching and she aims to bring to mind the power of collective consciousness and how mass media penetrates and manipulates the world.

Apart from performing with The Major Pins, Kat Garden has toured as a solo artist in Slovenia, Holland, Denmark, England, Ireland and Austria and created Playing for Integration, an EU-financed Songwriter-collective together with a bunch of amazing songwriters from several countries to start a network for handmade music and the co-writing scene.

Having recently relocated to Berlin from New Zealand, this album marks the release of the first non-New Zealand-based artist that Monkey Records has signed. Listen to the album here.