Artist Spotlight is a segment that we started to introduce our listeners to some deserving up and coming artists/ bands. They have made an impact on us for all of the right reasons. We think they kick ass and we hope you do too! Today, we’d like to introduce you to Monotronic!
Monotronic creates music that defies genre and is nearly impossible to categorize, yet somehow there is a common thread that can be traced back to its brainchild musician and producer Ramsey Elkholy. The latest release “Livin’ In A Lie” is a tale of growing self-awareness in the wake of love gone wrong, which illuminates another side of Elkholy’s storytelling and the diversity of his band. Stream it here: https://orcd.co/yogjqk7
When asked about the song Elkholy explains, “It’s about a guy who is enjoying the freedoms of the single life, until he meets a girl and falls in love.” He elaborates, “In the end the girl breaks his heart and changes him forever. He goes back to his single life but is no longer able to enjoy those freedoms he once cherished as a bachelor, but he deceives himself nonetheless and pretends to be happy.”
The New York-based collective released their debut album in 2019 followed by a series of singles and videos starting in the summer of 2020 with the glaring riffs and chantable refrain of “Kids of Summer”. The track has garnered some college radio airplay with a video featuring Elkholy skateboard riding dog Snookie (@snookieonwheels). A few months later the band released the pensive and poetic “Buy Yourself a Dream”, with an accompanying music video that premiered at the #1 slot on Vevo’s “Incoming Indie” playlist, followed by the energy-filled, ayahuasca themed “Just Another Day” with an equally psychedelic music video that also premiered on Vevo’s “Incoming Indie” playlist. Collectively Monotronic‘s videos and streams are approaching the 1 million mark.
Every superhero and villain have an origin and a band is not different. Well, minus the radioactive spiders and secret government experiment. What’s the origin of Monotronic?
Monotronic was an idea that was born in 2016 and started as a loose collective of NYC-based musicians. We would get together at Euphoria Studios in midtown Manhattan and jam for a few hours a week, very informal, no planned gigs, just for fun mostly. Lots of great players coming and going, most of whom I still stay in contact with. After a year or so the core unit had become somewhat solidified, and we started doing fun gigs in and around the city. The rest is history as they say!
Some artists cite when they heard a specific album or saw a band live as when they knew music was going to be their life. When were you bitten by the music bug?
My father took me to a Kiss concert at MSG when I was 10 years old. That made a pretty big impression on me! But it wasn’t until later in high school that I started seeing live music regularly. Seeing Jerry Garcia play live was hugely influential. I guess that’s where the dream began, just seeing those possibilities that I never knew existed. My family was pretty conventional, so it still took me some time to come around and make the commitment to music.
We’ve lost quite a few music icons over the last few years. If you could pick one or two to jam with, who would you pick?
Wow, too many to name! Charlie Christian, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and Django Reinhardt come to mind.
If your music were a mixed drink, what would be in it?
You got me there! Not much of drinker these days, so hard for me to make that connection. Maybe Jagermeister because it has the poppies.
You’re booking a tour that you’re on & you can bring along any 4 bands (even if they are no longer with us or just broken up). Who would you choose?
The Grateful Dead, Zero, Papadosio and Goose with Ravi Shankar as the opener. I guess that’s 5.
Check out “Livin’ In A Lie” : https://soundcloud.com/monotronicband/xlivininalie-mhb-itb-rcl-alt-mix-3-warmer-eq-07-23-copy/s-Uio3DRo2rwr
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