Mønic - In a Certain Light (2019)

This cassette and digital release from label boss Simon Shreeve — heard here in his Mønic guise — is a radical departure from previous material released under the pseudonym. Adorned with a faded photo of the artist's grandmother as a child, themes around loss, nostalgia, and the passage of time run deep throughout these nine sparse tracks. Bookending the album are two ambient sound baths; between them, Mønic's trademark kicks take on a decidedly more cavernous form — crushingly deep, but somehow otherworldly. The result is that the percussive elements serve a mantra-like role, moving the listener through mostly melody-less spaces, interjected with moments of cinematic tension via string arrangements that hint at Shreeve's Kryptic Minds past.