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Our new single: ‘More Than Blue’

This track is a collaboration between The Sighs of Monsters and poet David Chislett. The poem “More Than Blue” appears in his new collection of poetry With All Of You and we were tasked with setting it to music, along with other artists who chose other works.

The poem references the cultural impact of New Order’s “Blue Monday” as it pounded out of the loudspeakers of the clubs in the 1980s, as the author “found his tribe”. We’ve made some cheeky references to it in our musical treatment.

The Poem/Lyrics:

I dance and twitch in a moment
Eyes fixed on a point
‘Blue Monday’ in my ears
Nineteen eighty-five
Heart is exploding
Not because of some girl
Something bigger than myself
Something I recognise

Found my tribe in that moment
A place I would call home
Nineteen eighty-five
would last a long time
But my colours are no longer
nailed to that mast
They are now my own
Now they are my own

From “With All Of You” by David Chislett

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Avocet Session – Sea Stories

The Sighs of Monsters spent the day on a boat on the River Colne, knocking back cheap whiskey, and working on some rootsy acoustic versions of our songs. We started, aptly enough, with ‘Sea Stories’ from our first album, Ground.

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Dust – Our new album

Our new album DUST was released today. It is available for digital download or on CD via Bandcamp.

“And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”

Fate is indifferent. It is neither unkind nor unjust. Nevertheless, it has left us here to tell you the stories of the dead and the defeated. You will have your own tales, no doubt, which occupy your thoughts at the most unexpected of times, but this is our testimony which we hope to share with you.

Without the dread of grief and death, there cannot be the the ecstasy of joy and innocence unbridled. One holds a mirror to the other. And, be that as it may, we can avoid none of it so let us proceed together. Let us speak of such things.

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Akai MidiMix Drivers

As we’ve mentioned before, we are very enthusiastic users of Propellerhead Reason as the main DAW in our studio. As tech-heads we love plugging things in and getting stuff to work together. Unfortunately, not every new device has drivers available and this can make things complicated and inelegant.  We recently bought an Akai MidiMixer to control some aspects of our performance requiring loops and samples managed in Reason, and to integrate these maintaining the spontaneity of the live performance with regular instruments.

Disappointingly there were no official drivers supplied for this device by either Propellerhead or Akai. Bringing up this issue on the excellent Reason Users’ Group on Facebook led to finding basic drivers (or codecs, as they’re more accurately referred to) which got us up-and-running. But we wanted two more things: (1) that the mapping conformed more to the default way the device worked with the dual-function bottons activated by holding down the ‘solo’ key, and also – vital for live performances in low light – that the LED light indicators worked.

Luckily our resident whizz Chris is a software engineer, so he set to work writing and refining the codec for this device and now everything should work as it should.

So, if you’re in the same boat – a Reason user who has an Akai MidiMix control surface, please feel free to use our driver/codec pack which we’re sharing for free. If it has made your workflow better and you’d like to say ‘thanks’, why not buy one of our albums?

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Music Video – Fight

A video we made for our social media channels of the song ‘Fight’ from our album ‘Lie’ – available from https://thesighsofmonsters.bandcamp.com

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“Saturday Morning 5am” is “Record of the Day”

We are very excited that our new track Saturday Morning 5am has been selected as “Record of the Day” by that eponymous music news service.

They say:

“London-based band The Sighs Of Monsters manage to brilliantly distill so many elements of dance culture over the past 40 years into this one track that you’ll thoroughly enjoy picking out the styles and eras as it throbs along. Telling the story of someone finding love in a club, it’s described by the band themselves as being a bit like The Smiths’ classic How Soon Is Now, but with a happy ending this time round. Along the way, there are affectionate nods to the 1990’s rave scene and the influence that Madchester played upon it, with Oakenfold, Farley, Heller and Weatherall-esque production elements bubbling away, including pulsing basslines and Italiano piano stabs. You’ll hear Krautrock, disco, and house all in there too. “

Read more at Record of the Day.

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Review: Saturday Morning 5am

A short review of our new track “Saturday Morning 5am” by Mark Buckley of the Electronic North blog:

Saturday Morning 5am by UK band The Sighs of Monsters perfectly captures that sensation when the party is over and in your mind it’s not quite the right time to go home yet. The piano sound and driving bassline give the track an air of urgency whilst the vocals of Dean Sobers bring a wistful and oddly euphoric feel to the track. This is such a perfect song!

Music journalist and DJ Joe Muggs agrees. He tweeted:

Our track has also been included on two Spotify playlists by ThatNewJam and PopJustice!

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The Red Dog Music Profile

We’ve been featured on the Red Dog Music blog’s “Sunday Spotlight”. Find out a little more about the gear we use and a our preferred Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).

http://blog.reddogmusic.co.uk/2017/07/09/18493/