Mew w/ Monakr

Mew frontman Jonas Bjerre has worked on the projections for the band’s live shows since their early days. Usually, the Danish trio finish an album and Bjerre gets to work on the visuals. For their seventh record, though, the singer decided to turn things upside down, picturing visuals in his mind first and seeing how they could inform the music. The resultant record feels like a culmination for one of rock’s most ambitious and inventive groups: Visuals is where Bjerre and his bandmates, bassist Johan Wohlert and drummer Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen, join the dots of a career that has spanned over two decades.

“We do everything on this album ourselves,” says Bjerre. “We produced it ourselves, designed the artwork, and the visuals. Visuals felt like a fitting title. I like the idea that each song has a visual aspect to it somehow.”

Mew have a tradition of, as Bjerre puts it, hiding away in a cave for three or four years between albums. The tour that accompanied 2015’s +- album found the band reaching a creative peak that they felt was too exhilarating to be dampened by a period of extended cave-dwelling. They arrived home with demos that had been written on the road and the spark was lit. They wanted to break the cycle and make an album quickly. “We just felt like, “if we do it the normal way, it’s gonna be another three or four years before we get to do it again’,” says Bjerre. “If you keep doing it like that, ultimately you make a handful of albums and then you’re ready for retirement.” The trio wanted to make an album spontaneously, keeping the energy they’d generated on the road going.

They set to work in Copenhagen and started knocking the demos they’d written on tourbuses and in hotel rooms into shape. At the same time, new songs were emerging in reaction to what was going on around them. “It was pretty dark last year, so some of the darkness in the lyrics comes from that. You definitely got the feeling that things don’t last forever, and it’s an important reminder to treasure the here and now”.

Visuals was completed in under a year – what Bjerre describes as an “incredible” feat for a band used to periods of prolonged tinkering. “Spending less time on it, you can still maintain the feeling you had when you first wrote it, and you don’t get stuck in the quagmire of second-guessing yourself all the time” says Bjerre.

Bjerre doesn’t know where Mew songs come from. He finds it hard to pin down his lyrics, his melodies, himself. It’s what makes the band so special, that thrill that songs could go anywhere, that understated verses could suddenly rocket skyward, anthemic choruses could implode into beautiful soundscapes or sophisticated grooves could be crushed like a tincan. “I don’t consciously know why the songs come out the way they do,” says Bjerre. “Even though a song is on an album, it keeps growing because we get to go out and perform it for an audience, and through people who listen, we get to experience the music in an ever different light. I like the thought it can keep growing. It’s never really finished.”

Visuals is Mew at their most compact, their chemistry at its most potent. With only one song over five minutes, it’s their most concise album. Bjerre says there was no need for a grand, overarching concept. Each song on Visuals represents its own little chapter and story: nothing needed to be overly long. “Each album is like a collection of thoughts and ideas that fit the time we’re in,” he says. “They’re like little diary entries, except they’re a little bit more veiled perhaps. To me, albums are memories of times in my life.”

The song that led the way was the slow-building euphoria of Nothingness And No Regrets. Bjerre says that Mew lyrics often have two or three different meanings.

The expansive 80s-style pop of The Wake Of Your Life is about legacy and what’s left after you’ve gone. “These are things you think about more and more the older you get.” It started out as a synth-pop track with lots of programming before taking on a different shape when the band added guitars over the top."

The discordant stomp of Candy Pieces All Smeared Out came about after Bjerre went back over some demos he’d made as a youngster on an Amiga 500. “Some of them were interesting sonically so I kept some of the programming. We built the song on top of this really weird 8-bit computer track.” The song sums up the emotional to and fro and captivating contrariness at the heart of Visuals: it’s an album that’s both nostalgic and contemporary, that looks back whilst marching forward.

The blissful glide of In A Better Place is a prime example of the impulsive environment that the songs were written in, a drumbeat by Jorgensen inspiring Bjerre to write a song immediately, whilst the atmospheric rock of Ay Ay Ay was based around a choir part that Bjerre had come up with a few years ago. The vocal parts were recorded in the booth that Bjerre had constructed in his apartment in Copenhagen. “I like waking up in the middle of the night and feeling inspired by something and being able to go in my booth and just sing it,” he says.

Bjerre says that the celebratory groove of Learn Our Crystals “is one of our weirdest songs.” Poppy and fantastical, it had a familiar feeling to the singer as soon as he wrote it. The soulful sway of Shoulders has an R’n’B feel to it, whilst the band had earmarked the mesmerising intricacy Carry Me To Safety as the album’s closer as soon as it’d been written. “I just like how it twists and turns,” he says. “It’s a reflection on life and being in a band, what it means to be in a band, dedicating so many years of your life to this thing.”

Twenty years into their career, Mew have the irrepressible ebullience of a band on their debut album. Visuals feels like the beginning of a new chapter. “Mew is what I always come back to, it’s a companion to my life. It’s always been there, as long as I can remember. It’s a big part of the footprint that we’ll leave behind,” says Bjerre. Mew march on: this is the sound of a band seizing the moment.Mew930

MONAKR is an ethereal deep-pop group formed by Grammy-nominated artist Matthew Santos (featured vocalist on Lupe Fiasco’s Superstar) and Saam Hagshenas and Jonathan Marks, formerly of indie band Hey Champ.

Having tried to collaborate for years, the timing and music came together in 2015 with Diamond, a song written by Hagshenas after he lost a family member. Santos added his incredible vocals to the track, and the result led the two to decide this collaboration should live beyond a single song.

The sound of MONAKR has echoes of Hey Champ’s synth-laden pop but with the heart-wrenching gravitas that only Santos’ voice could provide. Working with producer Dan Brunelle (Gemini Club) they crafted a wonderfully received EP, Calling Out.

Calling Out featured 2 resoundingly loved songs - Diamond and the eponymous track, which charted Top 20 on Spotify's Global Viral Hits Chart. Consequence of Sound called Diamond "a radiant and uplifting gem, full of glimmering synths and equally polished hooks”; and Beautiful Buzzz commented that "This is pop perfection". The record was also picked up for much of Eastern Europe by culture-defining label Embassy of Music.

After selling out their debut show, MONAKR played a series of shows and festivals including Mamby on the Beach, CRSSD Fest, and a packed appearance at 2016's NY Fashion Week finale as guests of Hudson Jeans.

Their gorgeous cover of Massive Attacks's celebrated song Teardrop was also recently released (and featured in the Jennifer Lopez drama "Shades of Blue” on NBC.)

The band is currently finishing their follow-up EP, entitled Dos. Slated for August 2017 release, the lead track is Ophelia, a song that is rooted in Shakespearean drama. The accompanying video was shot by Nick Cavalier and features acclaimed dancer Tracy Lynn.

MONAKR will take to the road in support of Danish rock band Mew this August, followed by several shows with Dessa, a longtime friend with whom they will also perform at this year's Riotfest (Chicago, September 15th). #Mew930