This is the fourth album by this London based musician and producer although the first two were limited edition CDRs
Monk is an outsider artist who seems inspired by dark esoteric bands like Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound from the UK underground scene of the 1980s which was covered in David Keenan's book 'England's Hidden Reverse'.
Monk plays six string guitar, uses laptop effects and the album also features
unusual instrumentation such as a Vietnamese zither, Tibetan hand chimes and a Shennai Pipe.
It's a form of folk music but don't expect any songs about bonnie wee laddies or damsels in distress.
Instead, the seven track album, named after a Goya drawing (El Espejo Indiscreto), is billed as exploring "the tension between innocence and experience during late adolescence" and sees reason as "a tyranny of the intellectual mind".
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The centrepiece is Pluckley Follies presumably a reference to Pluckley in Kent which has been described as the most haunted village in England.
There is certainly something ghostly about this track matched by the sinister drones of Threlenea and Shadowflight, the first incorporating an eery treatment of Monk's voice.
Blending funereal instrumentals and solemn (and out of tune!) vocal tracks, it creates a distinctive atmosphere but one which is most certainly not designed to summon up the joys of Spring.
Alex Monk's website
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