Stylishly combining the warm embrace of down-tempo dance with a clearly melodic edge and fragments of hypnotic, immersive detail – producer and artist Mønochef re-sets your mood with ease throughout a post-four-minute Flushed Away.
Intricately crafted, with various new layers emerging throughout, the track fuses blissfully delicate piano-work with the relentless movement and bass-thick intensity of EDM. The result is a kind of jazz-café, trip hop-style inspiration, with a bold level of emotive passion at its core – something that intensifies during the latter half, to an almost heartbreakingly moving degree.
Elsewhere in the Mønochef catalogue, Moonrise Glow gets creative again but still maintains certain threads of identity – the attention to detail, the echoes or fragments of expression, the warmth of the meandering bass and the rising energy of the beat.
Then from the album Sound of Toronto, we get a handful of tracks that incorporate a completely unique way with sound design. Consider the compressed rhythm and contrastingly light, almost hospital-like cinematic aspects of Walk sign is on for all crossings.
The music is peaceful yet fascinating, so whatever you need to be doing can be done – or you can focus in and surrender to the moment as your imagination runs wild.
Espresso sets the scene with similar extracts of real-life and proceeds to build a fascinatingly relevant soundscape and fast-paced rhythm, lifting the mood and engaging with listeners in a quirky, artistic way.
Other highlights from the project include the natural ambiance and melodic calm of Queen’s Park, within which Mønochef really takes you there – uniting the electronic and organic worlds in a gorgeously soothing fashion.
Ontario Lake is another, the closing track from the album. Here things get a little reflective, emotional, with the scenery running wild as the piano guides you through. There’s a gorgeous degree of joyfulness to this track, it underlines a whole other side to the producer and creative at work, and promptly reminds us of the beauty in the world, both in nature and in the music we share.
Undoubtedly a composer worth spending some time with right about now. A pleasure to listen through.
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