Originally released digitally as a two-track single Scarlet Holliday was MONO’s Christmas gift to the world in the midst of a global pandemic. Now expanded with an extra song Scarlet Holliday gets a physical release and the tracks contained within capture the essence of the winter season and transfer that feeling to vinyl and create a listening experience that can be enjoyed all year round.
There’s always been something ethereal and other-worldly about MONO’s sound and their latest EP is no exception. Emanating as if from some strange parallel universe, the title track is a slow builder that begins rather sedately with guitar lines that hang starkly and sparkle like stars in a crystalline sky. However, it’s indicative of MONO’s modus operandi as layers of sound are gradually added, almost imperceptibly, and before you realise you are suddenly submerged in a sea of sound. From its humble beginnings, Scarlet Holliday becomes a swirling tempest as the keyboards and drums circle a haunting motif. There’s something ice cold and glacial about this track that encapsulates the sensations of the winter months and conjures various wintery images. MONO are primarily an instrumental band so Scarlet Holliday breaks with tradition by including a few spoken lines, but they’re buried deep in the mix so they’re barely audible and, as if spoken by a spectre, add to the haunting atmosphere.
Scarlet Holliday was recorded by long term collaborator Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Tad) and he’s given the band a wide, expansive sound that creates the sensation of something so vast and immovable, a brutalist building or a leaden sky, that leaves you dwarfed beneath its monolithic enormity. Yet the band are lithe too and First Winter captures that magical moment that exists between wake and sleep. With a circular riff it’s very hypnotic and, like a wheel in perpetual motion, suggests the turning of the seasons. Epilogue closes the EP and it’s the new track that reminds me of early Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. It employs tonality to great effect and the subtle sonic shifts serve to both soothe and startle the listener. As with the other tracks on this compilation, this is music designed to transport you to another dimension and Epilogue is designed to get you there in style.
You’d expect an EP themed around winter to be bare, cold and frostbitten, and while Scarlet Holliday is all of those, it’s also multi-layered and rich in symbolism. Tokyo’s MONO are a band who are in constant motion and Scarlet Holliday continues their evolution and signposts a bright future.
Scarlet Holliday Track Listing:
1. Scarlet Holliday
2. First Winter
3. Epilogue
