#mondoj

[zef-zef]

Chill on Sunday

Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek - Shadows from: Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek - Greyhound Days (Mondoj, 2025)

‘Greyhound Days’ strikes a shared note of spontaneity and intention. Featuring pieces for tenor saxophone and digital keyboard, and accented by traces of additional instruments, these songs sound a fated exchange mutually effortless and expansive. (bandcamp)

[zef-zef]

Chill on Sunday

Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka - The Journey from: Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka - Languoria (Mondoj, 2022)

[dustedmagazine]

---__--___ — The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid (Orange Milk / Mondoj)

The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid by ---__--___

The house on the cover of The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid is eerily reminiscent of the house this writer grew up in. The red-bricked bungalow, black shingles, white trim, and manicured lawn all bring back memories. Even the yard sale cast-offs conjure up scenes of suburban coming-of-age. Who hasn’t tried to sell a half-working space heater – a creature comfort for white suburbia – to their neighbors? Orange Milk co-founder Seth Graham and Mari Maurice (More Eaze) describe this record as expressing (among other things) the “entrapment of class,” and the painting of this house (created by Ellen Thomas from an idea hatched by Graham) displays exactly that.

Let’s also discuss the name of this project, this collection of dashes and underscores. Much can be said in the absence of words and letters here. An image of the pulse from an ECG machine, the symbolic moniker sprang from Graham’s subconscious, after he spent time alongside a loved one in the hospital. Both powerlessness and hope are reflected in that bouncing beam of light, particularly when it’s acting as an indicator of life itself. The name of the project and the album art, taken together, perfectly summarize the emotions that permeate the music that Graham and Maurice are offering: sadness, hope, love, longing, and existential unease.

The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid is an austere, slowly unfolding, and intimate record. At times, Maurice’s auto-tuned voice is the only element we hear. At others, she’s backed up by a single instrument. On “When You’re Hot Around the Narcs,” it’s a plucked cello, while a whisper of synth adorns “To Suppress the Voice.” The melancholy of these moments of quietude are frequently interrupted by angry bursts of sound. These sonic cluster bombs comprise either stabs of sample-heavy MIDI-concrète, passages of free improvisation crafted by commissioned musicians, or the mutant offspring of both approaches. This quiet-loud, or sad-angry, juxtaposition reflects how we as humans sometimes deal with emotions: reflecting inward before exploding in a rage-fuelled outburst. Hopefully (but not always), heavy emotions are followed by a sense of peaceful reconciliation.

Maurice’s voice isn’t the only one we hear on this record. Galen Tipton (appearing here as recovery girl) unleashes a cathartic death growl, enhancing the angrier passages of “Sadness, Infinite America … Shit” and “From the Valley.” Maurice trades faint whispers with Metoronari across “Julius Eastman / NY Metro Xylophone Player.” In one of the most affecting and hopeful passages, proxy.exe lays down a spoken word passage about how looking up from rock bottom seems daunting but the path upward is relatively short. All these other vocalists balance the heart-wrenching melancholy dripping from Maurice’s lips. The powerful emotions are balanced. There’s hopefulness and beauty nestled in among them, and we will survive, taking life one day at a time.

Bryon Hayes

[burlveneer-music]

Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie - Scribble - a playful set of experimental electronic music (Mondoj)

'Scribble' is truly a befitting name for this collection of miniatures created by composer and sound designer Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie. Recorded at his home this past Summer, the short, sweet pieces really are like aural scribbles in a notebook. Slightly chaotic and seemingly unintentional, the 7 tracks exhibit a childlike wonder, a fascination with how various sounds or rhythms work (or don’t work) in tandem. At the time of writing, Sachs-Mishalanie was particularly interested in exploring loose evolving patterns, utilizing sounds that feel both natural and synthetic - for instance atmospheric field recordings, uncanny MIDI xylophones, and clumsy samples of his own voice. The resulting pieces each explore a singular environment, in which various elements (often quite literally) bounce off each other. There is no obvious logic to how these pieces evolve and behave, but there is something uniquely captivating about these recordings - they are surreal, yet eerily familiar. Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research focuses on the music of Pierre Schaeffer. He also teaches Music Technology courses at Hunter College and Brooklyn College, creates Max for Live devices, scores and sound designs for theatre, and records and mixes chamber music.

[soundaslanguage]

Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie - Scribble (Mondoj)

released November 6, 2020

I absolutely adore labels where you just have no clue what direction the next release will take you. That doesn’t mean I will always enjoy the journey but you have to respect it at least. Mondoj is one of those labels and Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie’s Scribble is a perfect example of the label’s commitment to going off the radar. The album is short and sweet but never lacking in substance. Sure, Scribble could be guilty of lacking any true form but that’s part of the charm with Sachs-Mishalanie’s untamed arrangements. The album is a whimsical and wild ride full of heart and spirit. These experimental pieces are downright joyful in their abandonment of any logical structure. If you are a fan of Orange Milk releases, you will be absolutely enamored with Scribble and eagerly anticipating what Sachs-Mishalanie has in store for us next.

https://mondoj.bandcamp.com/album/scribble

[bandcampotheque]

Listen/purchase: if I don't let myself be happy now then when? by more eaze & claire rousay

[lflip]

(Mondoj)