monokle & al-90: mindperfection

Mindperfection is the result of a collaboration between the St Petersburg producer, Monokle and AL-90, a musician hailing from the Russian port of Murmansk on the edge of the Arctic Circle. "A few years ago, we were offered to make a joint track, it turned out to be very original and suited in spirit both me and AL-90. We also got a very big feedback after its release," says Monokle of the relation, "After that, we talked to each other for a long time about working on another joint release." Despite the hundreds of kilometers of land separating both musicians, creating the album was a smooth and speedy process, Mindperfection definitely draws on Monokle's earlier releases; tracks which unite fragments of IDM, glitch, ambient, and drone to create a unique mosaic of sound that has come to define the producer's style. There is a lot going on some of the tracks, samples with varying moods, accelerated beats, and scraps of voice heard here and there, but the overall picture is surprisingly very harmonic. The tracks in the album are tied together and made cohesive by an inherent warmth. Even in some of the more fast-paced and darker titles, there is a subtle melancholy that can be felt within. The track "Lowland" for instance, consists of displaced rhythms which accelerate and slow down in an eerie melody, "I like the atmosphere of this track, it is gloomy and at the same time brisk and free," says Monokle. While a lot of their usual tools and effects were employed, Monokle and AL-90's collaboration rendered new sound worlds to Mindperfection. AL-90's earlier releases have a lo-fi quality to them, a fuzziness that is reminiscent of the sound of a cassette. For Mindperfection, he employed several filters on Monokle's otherwise crisp sound to soften its edges and create something more organic, "I'm not used to such a dirty sound, because AL-90 deliberately spoiled the original, pure sound. But it gave the album a certain soft, analog and cassette charm," says Monokle. Mindperfection is an album that delivers in textures and complexity. With superimposed layers that are at once dark and beautiful, alienating and warm, toe-tapping and introspective, the album is a melting pot of effects and ideas. The seemingly contradictory elements come together in structures of kaleidoscopic cohesiveness, that are testament to Monokle and AL-90's experience, skills, and successful collaboration.