Together at Last

Mark Monnone has put in some long hours and some even longer miles to finally touch down at the debut Monnone Alone album Together At Last.

Recorded by Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) at his storied Brooklyn studio Marlborough Farms, Together At Last goes some way to logging Monnone's travels, both physical and metaphysical; from topiarian hallucinations at New York's medieval cloisters to using London's buses as a furniture removal service, these are brief urban accounts told with one eye for the absurd and one for the mundanely beautiful.

Having co-founded The Lucksmiths back in 1993, and with his buoyant melodic basslines a striking feature of the band's sound, Mark Monnone was also handy as the band's pinch hitter songwriter and was responsible for such radiant moments as 'Take This Lying Down' and 'T-Shirt Weather'. Since The Lucksmiths' demise in 2009, Mark has continued to sharpen the focus on his songwriting, first stepping out on his own in 2011 with the single Pink Earrings.

Together At Last is helmed by Monnone's guitar strum and warm non-singerly vocal and features backing instrumentation from the semi-regular Monnone Alone live band of Connal Parsley (Your Wedding Night, bass) and Gus Franklin (Architecture in Helsinki, drums) with extra flavour added by friends from Crystal Stilts, The Aislers Set, Ruby Suns and The Clean.

As for comparisons, Everett True has opined on Collapse Board that Mark Monnone "exhibits an astonishing array of singing styles – from Stephen Pastel (circa '84) to Dan Treacy (circa '83) to Gregory Razorcut (circa '85) to Bobby G (circa '84). This might sound like it's bad or despicable, but on the contrary: we can't help but warm to them. Nostalgia being what it used to be."