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Mono (UK band)

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Mono
OriginLondon, England
GenresTrip hop
Years active1996–2000
LabelsEcho, Mercury
Past membersSiobhan de Maré
Martin Virgo

Mono was a British electronic music duo which had a hit in the late 1990s with their song "Life in Mono". The group's music is often described as trip hop, based on its similarities to contemporary electronic music acts including Sneaker Pimps and Portishead. Audible, and frequently cited, influences in Mono's songs include jazzy instrumentation reminiscent of 1960s spy film soundtracks and production styles rooted in 1960s pop music.

Biography

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History

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The band, formed in late 1996 in London,[1] consisted of singer Siobhan de Maré and Martin Virgo on keyboards, synthesizer programming, and production. Virgo, trained in classical piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, had been working as a session musician since the early 1990s as part of the production team of Nellee Hooper, which led to credits on a remix of Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy" (considered one of the landmark songs of trip hop's "Bristol sound") and Björk's 1993 album Debut.[2][3] De Maré comes from a family with several generations of history in entertainment; her father was Tony Meehan, drummer for the Shadows,[4] her grandfather was one of the Gongmen featured in the opening logo sequences in Rank Organisation films,[3] and her grandmother was a dancer who worked with Shirley Bassey.[1] She had been working as a session singer for hip hop and R&B musicians,[1] as well as writing and touring, though much of this material consisted of underground and white label releases.[5]

The two were introduced to each other while in London in pursuit of their respective musical projects: Virgo was in the midst of a break in session work, while de Maré had been planning to set up a personal recording studio in Paris.[5] Despite different musical influences (de Maré by R&B and soul,[1] Virgo by 1960s pop standards, and classical music from sources such as France and the Second Viennese School),[3] their collaborative songwriting efforts apparently meshed easily. Virgo describes the demos recorded at this time as comprising ideas such as "Parliament breaks under bits of Serge Gainsbourg".[1] After some demo tapes were distributed among music industry executives, the band received a number of contract offers from record labels.[3] The pressure of this drove them to form a group, even with de Maré having gone on vacation in Los Angeles at this point.[1] Originally planning to use the name Tremelux,[1] they chose instead Mono, derived from the title of the Phil Spector release Back to Mono.[6]

The band signed a UK-only contract at first with Echo Records, passing up labels like Warner, Island, and London.[7] Their first release, in 1996, was an EP of the song "Life in Mono" and various remixes, most notable of these being two by the Propellerheads, a popular big beat band and remix group at the time. This was followed by the Formica Blues album in 1997.

In 1998, the use of "Life in Mono" in the soundtrack, trailers, and end credits of the film adaptation of Great Expectations (after Robert De Niro, who was working on the film, heard the song)[4] brought greater exposure for the song than ever before, and it became the number one most requested song on US radio stations (such as KROQ-FM in Los Angeles, KITS in San Francisco, and WNNX in Atlanta)[2] for weeks following the film's release.[3] (In terms of specific radio stations, for example, "Life in Mono" made #45 on the KROQ Top 106.7 Countdown of 1998 and #76 on the 91X Top 91 of 1998,[8] while Formica Blues was #73 on Toronto's 102.1 The Edge's 1998 year-end top 102 albums countdown.)[9] With the band's new U.S. deal with Mercury Records (signed with then-A&R vice president Steve Greenberg, who had reportedly been looking to sign the band from the start),[7] promotional singles of "Life in Mono" were also distributed to nightclubs at about the same time as modern rock stations,[2] though only later was the single provided to Top 40 stations.[7]

Now at the height of their popularity, Mono embarked on their only concert tour.[10] After a quiet period, however, the band broke up in 2000.[11] De Maré now sings for Violet Indiana featuring Robin Guthrie of the group Cocteau Twins; later, in 2004, she recalled feeling "creatively stifled" as part of Mono.[12] Violet Indiana has released a number of singles, two albums and a singles collection. More recently, de Maré also founded Pearl Dust, a music management company.[13] Virgo joined International Love Corporation, an unsigned rock band promoted through Myspace and CD Baby, as keyboardist.[14]

Musical style

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Virgo has stated that his top musical influences are John Barry, Burt Bacharach and Phil Spector.[15] These influences are evident in the songs on Formica Blues, which Virgo has characterized as being inspired by the most-played music in his record collection.[1] For example, "Life in Mono" samples harpsichords from Barry's soundtrack to The Ipcress File, and "High Life" pays homage to the sound of the girl groups Spector produced in the 1960s.

The music of early 20th-century classical music composers has also been identified as samples in the song "Hello Cleveland!"; in particular, the presence of pieces by Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, and Alban Berg, the principal members of the Second Viennese School,[16] supports Virgo's citation of the group (as well as their Klangfarbenmelodie technique)[3] as among his influences. The opening chords of "Hello Cleveland!" are a sample of the opening chords of Keith Jarrett's "17 October 1988" from his Paris Concert CD.

Discography

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Mono's entire discography consists of the Formica Blues album, two releases of the "Life in Mono" single, further UK singles "Silicone", "Slimcea Girl" and "High Life", and the song "Madhouse", released only on the soundtrack to the 1998 film version of Psycho.

A score of remixers were commissioned on their four single releases; aside from the Propellerheads, the more notable of these include Stuart Price (in an early appearance as Les Rythmes Digitales), Mr. Scruff, Matthew Herbert, Jóhann Jóhannsson (under the alias Lhooq), and 187 Lockdown.

Tour

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In 1997, Mono played a few shows across the United Kingdom and France.[17]

The Independent, in a review of the Cafe Blue show (attributing it as the group's "debut gig") questioned the choice of location but gave a positive response.[18]

In 1998, the band embarked on its only tour, twenty-one dates divided between North America and Europe while skipping the UK altogether. Following the tour's conclusion, the band were to return to the United States to join the lineup of the 1998 Lilith Fair.[19] They were scheduled to play the following seven dates (reportedly cancelled):[20]

Reception

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Mono's success was largely centered in the United States, countered by their relative obscurity in the United Kingdom.[3][21] When interviewed by Rolling Stone just prior to their first U.S. concert, the band remarked on the lack of a promotional campaign in the UK, and the relative longevity of charting records in the U.S. in comparison;[22] still, "Life in Mono" failed to chart highly on either country's national singles chart, reaching #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #60 on the UK singles chart[23][24] on its second release.

Two other singles peaked outside the top 100 in the UK. "Slimcea Girl" peaked at #145 in October 1997,[25] and "High Life" peaked at #101 in July 1998[25] (#91[26] on the compressed chart with exclusions below #75). The "Formica Blues" album peaked at #71 in the UK in August 1998.[26]

In Australia, "Silicone" peaked at #222 in 1997,[27] and "Life in Mono" peaked at #83 in 1998 on the ARIA Singles Chart.[28] The "Formica Blues" album peaked at #149 in Australia.[29]

Comparisons

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In making comparisons to other popular artists of the late 1990s, Al Muzer, in Consumable Online, commends the band's music for being more sophisticated than chart-topping acts such as the Spice Girls and Hanson;[4] other reviewers, such as Spin's Jeff Salamon, take a more critical stance in noting the preponderance of bands with similar influences—period film scores and orchestrated pop, overlaid with beats—in the wake of Portishead, and criticize Mono for playing "by-the-numbers" in a combined review with Alpha's ComeFromHeaven, which is rated above Formica Blues for its more varied musical approaches.[30] Several other critics make a note of Mono's relationship to this body of artists—characterized by AllMusic as "mid-'90s male instrumentalist/female singer duos"[31] and The Independent as "that very Nineties pairing of the shady back-room knob-twiddler and the photogenic chanteuse".[18]

Still others felt that Mono stood out from this group (suggested as a "case of bad timing" by Melody Maker,[32] which nevertheless published a very favourable review of Formica Blues): those with this opinion, such as Chaos Digizine, tended to compare the band more to Saint Etienne, to illustrate their successful "weaving together musical elements of the past and present".[5] In turn, a certain selection of pop singers and composers from the 1960s were frequently associated with Mono as well. The London music newspaper Echoes summarizes: "John Barry, Juliette Gréco, Françoise Hardy... Astrud Gilberto... Jerry Goldsmith, Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, Avengers, Simone, Albert...", concluding with references to period television, fashion, and the leading figures of existentialism.[33]

In this, the band found approval with critics who appreciated their faithfulness to the music of the era: Toronto's Eye Weekly said that "unlike many of their contemporaries, they have a reverence for properly constructed songs",[34] and similarly, Charles Taylor, in The Boston Phoenix, remarked that "What distinguishes the album from a shopping list of mid-'60s cool is the enormous affection de Maré and Virgo conjure up for the period they invoke. It's the lack of irony or distance in that affection that are the key to understanding this band."[33]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Some pretty words..." Official Mono website (retrieved from the Internet Archive). 1998. Archived from the original on 9 June 2000. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
  2. ^ a b c Paoletta, Michael (28 February 1998). "Mercury's Mono evades pop stereotypes with 'Blues'". Billboard. Vol. 110, no. 9. pp. 36–37. ISSN 0006-2510.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Molineaux, Sam (June 1998). "Blue Notes: Martin Virgo of Mono; Recording Formica Blues". Sound on Sound. Retrieved 8 October 2006.
  4. ^ a b c Muzer, Al (24 February 1998). "Interview with Mono". Consumable Online. Archived from the original on 13 March 2006. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
  5. ^ a b c "Mono". Chaos Control Digizine. 1998. Retrieved 6 May 2010. (Archived by WebCite at https://www.webcitation.org/5pX0LdFSu)
  6. ^ D., Spence (July 1998). "In Stereo With Mono". grid magazine. Archived from the original on 9 November 2005. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
  7. ^ a b c "Mono – Restarting the UK Attack – And This Time Taking No Prisoners". Dotmusic. April 1998. Archived from the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  8. ^ "Rocklists.com". Retrieved 22 January 2007.
  9. ^ "1998: Top 102 Albums". Edge Year-End Charts. 102.1 The Edge. Archived from the original on 21 October 2006. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  10. ^ "Mono Live Tour Dates". Official Mono website (retrieved from the Internet Archive). 1998. Archived from the original on 15 June 2000. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
  11. ^ Harder, Derrick (29 August 2000). "Mono Disbands, World Promptly Forgets They Ever Existed". Pitchfork. Retrieved 19 January 2007.[permanent dead link]
  12. ^ Vanderwall, Peter (4 May 2004). "Violet Indiana, B2 Club". Culture Reviews. Expatru. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  13. ^ Pearl Dust Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ "International Love Corporation: Experimental Shape of Happiness". CD Baby (retrieved from the Internet Archive). Archived from the original on 7 April 2005. Retrieved 19 January 2007.
  15. ^ Micallef, Ken (24 February 1998). "Mono Tones". Yahoo! Music. Retrieved 9 March 2006. [dead link]
  16. ^ Nicholson, Sara (2002). "Keep Going!: The Use of Classical Music Samples in Mono's "Hello Cleveland!"". Echo: a music-centered journal. Vol. 4, no. 1. ISSN 1535-1807.
  17. ^ a b "Tour Archive". Live for Today (retrieved from the Internet Archive). Archived from the original on 21 April 1999. Retrieved 19 January 2007.
  18. ^ a b Johnson, Phil (12 September 1997). "Mono Cafe Blue, Bristol". The Independent. London. p. 12.
  19. ^ Flohimont, Clarisse (1998). "Interviews – Mono". Alternative (in French). Impulsion. Archived from the original on 28 April 2006. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  20. ^ "Lilith Fair '98". Joanna's Sarah McLachlan Page. 1998. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  21. ^ "Violet Indiana Interview". Thump Radio. 9 August 2000. Archived from the original (RealMedia) on 7 October 2007. Retrieved 8 October 2006.
  22. ^ Bartz, Kristen (20 April 1998). "Life with Mono". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 6 February 2009. Retrieved 11 July 2007.
  23. ^ Zywietz, Tobias (22 March 2005). "Chart Log UK: Mew – Monty Python". Chart Log UK. The Official Zobbel Website. Retrieved 8 October 2006.
  24. ^ "Billboard.com – Artist Chart History – Mono". Billboard. Retrieved 8 October 2006.
  25. ^ a b "Chart Log UK 1994–2010 M – My Vitriol". Dipl.-Bibl.(FH) Tobias Zywietz. Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  26. ^ a b "Official Charts > Mono". The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  27. ^ "Response from ARIA re: chart inquiry, received 15 July 2015". Imgur.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2015. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  28. ^ "The ARIA Australian Top 100 Singles Chart Week Ending 17 May 1998". Imgur.com (original document published by Australian Record Industry Association Ltd.). Archived from the original on 4 October 2015. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  29. ^ "Response from ARIA re: chart inquiry, received 13 September 2016". Imgur.com. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
  30. ^ Salamon, Jeff (March 1998). "Alpha – Come From Heaven / Mono – Formica Blues". Spin (retrieved from the Internet Archive). Archived from the original on 3 December 1998. Retrieved 20 January 2007.
  31. ^ Raggett, Ned. "Formica Blues". AllMusic. Retrieved 19 January 2007.
  32. ^ James, Martin (11 October 1997). "Mono double-edged, low-phat pop". Melody Maker. Vol. 74, no. 41. p. 12. ISSN 0025-9012.
  33. ^ a b Taylor, Charles. "Mono Tones". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 11 July 2007.
  34. ^ Anderson, Jason (16 April 1998). "Getting Back to Mono". Eye Weekly. Retrieved 19 January 2007.[permanent dead link]
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