That ability to evoke bored Sunday afternoons has arguably been done to death before by the likes of Anthony Rochester, Él Records artists and The Montgolfier Brothers but New York now gets in on the act via Monocle; a typically eccentric choice of name for this eccentric sound. Lazy melodies and blank female vocals are in abundance for this EP, which appears to be rather indebted to the Stereolab sound but as if they had signed to Cherry Red in the 1980s. They even manage to include a languid instrumental named 'Hawaii' but strangely they excel most at the end of each track; 'Car Ride' and 'Lounge Act' both feature lovely, wistful codas. Doubtless Monocle will be too derivative for some but the artists on Pralaya Records seem to be able to do nostalgia better than most.
That ability to evoke bored Sunday afternoons has arguably been done to death before by the likes of Anthony Rochester, Él Records artists and The Montgolfier Brothers but New York now gets in on the act via Monocle; a typically eccentric choice of name for this eccentric sound. Lazy melodies and blank female vocals are in abundance for this EP, which appears to be rather indebted to the Stereolab sound but as if they had signed to Cherry Red in the 1980s. They even manage to include a languid instrumental named 'Hawaii' but strangely they excel most at the end of each track; 'Car Ride' and 'Lounge Act' both feature lovely, wistful codas. Doubtless Monocle will be too derivative for some but the artists on Pralaya Records seem to be able to do nostalgia better than most.
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