Somewhere, deep in the vast blackness of the middle ocean, nautili are scuttling through the darkness, skimming tiny creatures and passing detritus from the water with freaky tendrils. Why does this matter? Well, it doesn't to you-- at least not directly-- but it's still something to think about. While you're waiting for the Jiffy Lube crew to finish up your oil and filter change, any number of life-and-death struggles are occurring in the animal kingdom; from the bat chasing the moth to the lion in pursuit of the bongo, and all the way back to my favorite evolutionary holdover-- the nautilus-- mindlessly plucking lives much tinier than itself from the sea, living on perpetual autopilot.
This album reminded me of the nautili, as much of it conjures the echoing of distant sound through huge stretches of water, albeit with some crunchy drum machines added for good measure. Australian sound sculptor John Chantler has his way with sines and sawtooths on Monoke, concocting pieces with a sense of drift worthy of the continental plates. "Play. Play." moves in shuddering waves over twittering programmed percussion, a wash of rounded sound. The middle of the record is especially aquatic, with the lava-lamp bubbling of "Autu" and "Vendor". The latter is like listening to the sonar pulse of a modern submarine. A thumping kick drum and something similar to a dot-matrix noise join deep-space pings and rhythmic, muffled returns, forming a truly otherworldly piece of music. It's somewhat reminiscent of John Chowning's 1970s experiments with early FM synthesis that yielded a series of surprisingly accessible, enveloping soundscapes. "Slow Closure" ends the record in a mid-Pacific abyss of reverb and hollow, pulsing sound.
Monoke is ultimately an album that falls about halfway between outright pop and outright minimalism: accessible but not exactly melodic, and simple without being especially sparse. There are times when the liquid sonics don't flow as smoothly as they could. In particular, "Personal Rock" is too thin an electronic wheeze, but on balance Monoke makes a nice slice of post-millennial electronica.
