Monde UFO follow the celebrated ‘7171’ album with a trip to the mysterious ‘Flamingo Tower’. In the shadows of the Los Angeles bustling music scene, the enigmatic collective led by visionary Ray Monde create a trance-like fusion of psychedelia and avant jazz, mantra-like evocations, brash moody ambience and passages reminiscent of long-lost library music.
Ray Monde: “I don’t really care for numerology but at the same time, I’m obsessed with it… ‘Samba 9’ is about me getting a pair of handed down Sambas (size 9) as a kid and feeling bad about a cowardly moment…the video is a fictionalized account of a song that is maybe semi fictionalized as well. I’m not really sure if its all true or just parts? Thanks to the director Ellis, he always beats me at board games but maybe I won this one?
Magnifying Monde UFO’s idea of musical chaos, their early sonic escapades into off-kilter exotica is now elevated with sweeping atmospheric waves of sound inspired by an eclectic brew of Arto Lindsey, Khan Jamal’s ‘Drum Dance To The Motherland’, Keith Hudson, Milford Graves, Marion Brown, Don Cherry and Lennie Tristano.
Cast deep into number theory with occasional quasi-religious touchstones, ‘Flamingo Tower’ bustles with background sounds overlaid with intimate melodies conjuring plenty of suitably strange illusions; a synthetic orchestra plays baroque pop, a guitar is set to auto destruct and Ray Monde’s hushed vocals carry a bracing narrative. It’s an evocative album, one for the heavy music nerds, sprinkled with ear candy and proliferated by mysterious numbers which litter the song titles.
“Monde UFO wander through a humid mist of exotic samba shuffles, shamanic whispers, and reverberating laser beam synthesizers.” New Commute
Therein lies the tension; as a full meandering symphony from a dysfunctional strung-out quartet is broken up by a guitar break that recalls the magical fuzzed out psychedelics of Red Krayola at their free-form best. This is music that paints images with gentle strokes working their way under kaleidoscopic mystery, a prism of emotions overflowing.
It’s suitably woozy and off-key, like life itself, with a stuttering rhythm and wayward sax for balance. By contrast, ‘Solitaire’ is a song that touches on the isolation and confusion found in moving forward in life, sounding like an out-take from a Mingus rehearsal with the Mad Professor locked in the control booth with original hippie boy Eden Ahbez for “vibes”.
“A slice of low-key bedroom pop-psychedelia in the vein of Syd Barrett” Aquarium Drunkard
‘Flamingo Tower’ is out 7th March 2025. Pre-Order in Limited Edition Flamingo Pink Vinyl LP.
