ARTISTS
((( IN MONO )))
MEMBERS
Paul Lynch - guitar, mpc-1000, vocals, bass, synth, etc.
BIO
VINYL FORMAT. Comes with a digital download code! On white vinyl; limited to 300 copies! Paul Lynch's first full-length album is an epic montage of dark distorted beats, sharply melodic guitars, and haunting vocals. A timeless tale of love and destruction, Ark of War weaves a post-apocalyptic yarn of two ships navigating a water-locked world. A concept album that could easily be found in a record crate wedged between My Bloody Valentine and Boards of Canada.
PRESS
"There’s a good chance that Ark of War—the debut album
from local producer Paul Lynch’s one-man-band, ((In Mono))—has
the most convoluted mythology of any record to come out of Portland in
the past decade. In a town that is home to both the Decemberists and a
Klingon metal group, that’s saying something.
According to Lynch, the lyrically scant drone-metal, downbeat-techno LP is intended to soundtrack a tale of doomed love that takes place on battling city-ships in a post-apocalyptic water world. The protagonist of this tale is named In Mantis (also the title of the record’s opening track), and she is distinguished by her propensity to behead romantic conquests with “razor-spiked arms that form after she orgasms.”
“I’ve always loved post-apocalyptic books and movies,” Lynch says. “So I just started writing songs, not based on that, but I gave the songs names, and then under that pretense I created chapters with those names, and it all just fell into place.”
Lynch is a musician with a history of indulging his diversionary tics.
He began his musical career by playing guitar in the drone-metal band Carpathia (alongside Talkdemonic’s Kevin O’Connor), and he has played extensively throughout Portland under his producing moniker, DJ Tan’t.
Despite his new project’s elaborate story, Lynch explains ((In Mono))’s genesis quite humbly: “I was like, ‘Well, I play guitar, I make beats, so I might as well combine the two and try to come up with something original.’”
Composed principally of reverb-tweaked drum samples and groaning, overdriven guitar, ((In Mono))’s music sounds like the heavily medicated love child of Ratatat and Thrones. Lynch’s customary stylistic mode is “stygian,” and Ark of War fairly sweats post-disaster decay. “KLTV” uses moaning vocals to create an air of anesthetized unease; “Fire South” piles aggressive guitar licks on top of thundering drum samples, forming a sinister contribution to the genre of “badass slow-motion walking music.”
Lynch spent four years writing and recording Ark of War. In an earlier
write-up of an ((In Mono)) show, this newspaper described him as having
a “give-a-fuckless” attitude toward self-promotion. Indeed,
Lynch seems to dictate his own terms less from willful defiance than from
simple habit. The result is a creative product that exists, in this case
quite literally, in its own private universe.
- Shane Danaher - Willamette Week
Ark of War, the largely instrumental debut album from In Mono, sees the band's mastermind Paul Lynch finding common ground in all his previous musical endeavors, including his work as DJ Tan't and his time in college playing in a drone band with Talkdemonic's Kevin O'Connor. The album is stuffed with heavy programmed beats, somewhere west of Pretty Hate Machine, and big-screen sustained guitar, somewhere south of Permanent Waves. There's also a nomadic darkness that's a little too glossy to be called noir, and sometimes the lockstep drumbeats sound a little videogame-y. But when Lynch throws all the pieces of his sound into the wind, as on the graceful flurry of "In Lust" or the guitar whirligigs of "Eat Your Love," In Mono brings the listener fully into its beautiful, strange world.
- NED LANNAMANN of Portland Mercury
SHOWS
08/15, Portland, OR @ Langano Lounge
07/02, Portland, OR @ The Woods
05/21 Portland, OR @ Lagano Lounge
05/06 San Francisco, CA @ The Retox
01/15 Portland, OR @ The Knife Shop
MEDIA
STORE
CATALOG
((( IN MONO ))) - Ark of WarLP/MP3 - June 14th, 2011
LMD043
TRACK LISTINGS:
01. In Mantis
02. KLTV
03. Fire South
04. Singapore Nights
05. In Lust
06. Senates Sun
07. Drop Fire
08. Eat Your Love
09. Soldier 68
10. Wine In Winter
11. Sweetness (mp3 bonus track)
12. Pathian Dome (mp3 bonus track)
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