One of our favorite Brooklyn-based bands, Monograms, has just released a new track and we are beyond excited to premiere it. Dark and broody, but not lacking in total dance-appeal, Monograms has developed a sound that is uniquely their own. Channeling a dark synthwave soundscape and lyrics that could be taken out of a Rimbaud book, Monograms produces the perfect music for what has quickly grown to be a year of quarantine. We may all be stuck in this personal—and shared—hell, but Monograms makes it palatable.
The new tune “Lines” features vocals by Kat E. and quintessentially poetic lyrics, “I got devils in my head, I got angels in my bed, I got 13 other subjects on my mind.”
Nine months removed from their last LP, Monograms (the alias of Brooklyn-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ian Jacobs) is set to release a 14 track album, Only A Ceiling Can Stay Inside Forever album— out next Friday via PaperCup Music.
I still haven’t showered and would rather get a root canal than do anything productive, so a 14-track album sounds like a downright quarantine miracle. Either that or Ian Jacobs is a goddam*ed legend.
The album was recorded and written almost entirely in isolation at Jacobs’ home studio during the Covid-19 quarantine, and amongst all the recent protests and social injustices that have taken place over the past 3+ months.
“Everyone I know just feels really frustrated about the situation. The politics, the sacrifices everyone is making, and the reality has been a very twilight zone-like kind of time for the entire world and the country. The title of the album was a phrase I kept thinking about within that thought process. When is it going to be ok to go outside again? And also how you can’t keep things hidden and locked up forever… these checkered pasts have to get drawn out. These last few months just felt kind of unreal, a true ‘how did we get here?’ kinda moment. And I think personally, I just needed to do something creative to weave through all these things, so I just started writing some ideas down and recording some ideas and experimenting. Some songs were more electronic and pulsing through the frustration of the time, and some are more down-tempo and introspective. After a few weeks, it all started to spiral into what felt like a cohesive thought, so it became an album in my mind.” – Ian Jacobs
Listen to “Lines” below and watch this space next week when we share the newest Monograms album.