The Psychotic Monks have another album coming out, and their new single has been dropped to light the way. Produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, Pink Colour Theory [album] comes out on the 3rd of February. The band, no strangers to swimming against the tide, have created a long, dystopian track that takes you in many different directions, and through many emotions. Not many of them are places or feelings you will enjoy.
The band formed in 2015 and have dabbled with Psychedelic rock, garage rock, post-punk, and post-rock, as well as many other forms. They do not like the verse/chorus format and they describe their music as ‘Post-Orwell’. While I commend the French group for their anti-establishment attitude, my only criticism is their listenability. The Stranglers were anti-establishment, but you can still listen to them without fear of a migraine. The constant start-stop of this song, playing with genre and the classic format of songs is an interesting concept, but ultimately makes it hard to enjoy the music. Unlike tracks like Wanna Be Damned that fit neatly into a genre, All That Fall does not fit into any genre at all. It is a mash-up of musical ideas thrown together to intrigue and test the listener, pull them in and make them an accomplice to this new creation. I think that’s what they are going for, anyhow. Unlike ‘It’s Gone’, debatably Psychotic Monks’ most famous track, which warms up with some symbols and synths before crashing into gear, ‘All That Fall’ does not give you time to warm up. The song begins with the musical equivalent of throwing a box of cutlery down the stairs, presumably to make sure you are paying attention.
The band are French, but sing in English. After the cutlery, we are then graced by someone saying barely legible incoherent phrases in an affected, jarring voice. After this the mood drops considerably. Abstract, lucid, and completely at odds with the start of the song. This continues for some time. Just when you feel as though you have stepped into a guided meditation lesson and are ready to drop off for a nap – Bam! The cutlery is back. ‘Are you watching now?’ is screamed at you several hundred times. Watching? No. I am listening, although I’m not sure to what exactly. Maybe that was the point. The album is made up in part of improvisation, and looks to delve into the experimental in-betweens, the dark, secret corners of music, as it were. To describe the single in a word: experimental.
It is worth noting that the outcome of an experiment is not always successful, nor does it have to be. I won’t criticise an artist for trying new things, leaning in new and undiscovered locations. However, this is a long (long) track. It clocks in at just under ten minutes. Not even Oasis would put you through something so painful. The song might have worked better had it been hidden in the middle of the album, rather than put out as a single. Although interesting in many aspects, the track does not seem to know where it is going, or why it was left on the album in the first place.
I watched the Mauritanian the other day. If you haven’t seen it, it’s great – a delve into the horrors of Guantanamo Bay. One way the CIA got their prisoners talking by tying them up and blaring loud music at them for days on end with strobe lights on, to prevent them from sleeping. If the yanks are looking for some new – experimental – music to aid them in their human rights crimes, they need look no further.
