Bella — Video by Scott Gelber

A Million Times — Video by Drew Liverman from Monofonus Press on Vimeo.

Knife Fight — video by Max Juren from Monofonus Press on Vimeo.

photo by Amy Annelle

Ralph White’s solo music quickly reveals his passion for old folk, proto-blues and country music, the roots of American music.  At the same time, the music, a layering of banjo, kalimba, button accordian, fiddle and vocals, shows a complete lack of interest in rehashing the past.  Ralph is a rare type of player who has fully internalized the traditional music,  but chooses to toss the purist blinders aside as he extracts the soul of the old music and allows it to evolve.  As a multi-instrumentalist he molds his many talents into a borderless, nostalgic sound that seems to actually grow out of the past.

On his latest record, Mongrel’s Hoard, Ralph expertly weaves his arrangements through originals and covers, layering over-dubbed sounds so naturally that it’s hard to believe these tracks aren’t live jams. Ralph’s drone-like banjo, reminiscent of Dock Bogg’s, his Balfa fiddle, button accordion and African kalimba create a meditative, almost psychedelic texture over which his high-lonesome drawl rounds his unique take on Pink Floyd’s “Fat Old Sun,” Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave is Kept Clean,” and four other amazing recordings.

Bryan’s recently completed “Lovers of Hate” (which he wrote, directed, and edited) has been officially selected to be screened in the 2010 Sundance film Festival.

Bear Claw is Nigel Rainey and friends’ bringing you stripped down, melancholy folk-pop of the excellent variety.  Building on a foundation of charming simplicity akin to The Vaselines, Marine girls, and Shop Assistants, Rainey’s vocals recall the sweet sadness of 80′s britpop as the band winds through bouncy, Beat Happening hopefulness and on to austere, Young Marble Giants-esque intensity, all the while employing the most supremely somber melodica ever heard outside of a dub record.

Bear Claw’s one-sider (due in early 2010) includes four tracks from their recently self-released cassette that we felt more than deserved the vinyl treatment.  Wonderfully recorded, beautiful songs.  Take a listen!

Thick, bruiser bar chords, bombastic drums and a singer who can BELT it!  ….and guess what, they can get get quiet too.  Singer/guitarist Lauren Green weaves between snake-charmer riffs and power chord chunk, employing the right amount of dissonance as Mitchell Tellstrom’s sinuous bass stays right on the trail, creating the inextricable root-note thread found on the best of punk records.  Tiffanie Lanmon’s shoulder-popping percussion meanwhile pushes the band through the aforementioned dynamic ranges, holding back until just the right moments; she knows when to accent and when to blow up.

Monofonus is psyched to kick off it’s vinyl-only “one-sider” series with a heavy three trakcer from Follow That Bird, available Oct. 20th!

Known internationally for his work with Shearwater, Smog/Bill Callahan, the Angels of Light, the Swans, and Devendra Banhart, Thor Harris is also a legendary local craftsman whose woodworking skills are apparent in the handcrafted percussive instruments he employs on recordings such as his ambient record, Fields of Innards, which Monofonus re-released as part of IF07.

Noel, a self-taught graphic artist who has been producing artwork since 1995, founded SubCulture Press in 2002 to give name to the series of silk screened prints and packaging projects he’d designed that incorporate “lost” and “forgotten” subcultural imagery he re-presents in contemporary context.  His work has appeared in many publications over the years including Dwell, Elle and ArtForum.  In 2006, Waggener was nominated for a Grammy Award for his design of the boxed set “Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost.”  He works from his Austin, TX studio, The Root House.

Noel collaborated with the writer Brian Hart and the band Over the Hill to produce IF06, the sixth installment of our IF Series.

Brian Hart was born in Idaho in 1976. He has worked as a squirrel trapper, dishwasher, line cook, janitor, house framer, welder, commercial fisherman, camp crew for the US Forest Service, drywall hanger, roofer, and hotel desk clerk. He has lived in Colorado, Oregon, California, Montana, Alaska, and Las Vegas where he was a journeyman in the Las Vegas Carpenter’s Union. In 2008 he received an MFA in fiction from the Michener Center for Writers. He has been a fellow at Yaddo and also at the MacDowell Colony. In 2005 he won the Keene Prize for Literature, the largest student-writing prize in the world. His novel, Then Came the Evening, will be published by Bloomsbury US in Feb. 2010.

As part of our IF Series, Brian collaborated with the artist Noel Waggoner and the band Over the Hill to make IF06.

Jill Pangallo is a video and performance artist who has shown, screened and performed at a variety of galleries, film festivals, and venues since 1998. Born in Baltimore and raised in Southern California, Pangallo headed to New York City at 17 and in 1993 received a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Psychology from Eugene Lang College. For the next 12 years, she spent her days working at a major advertising firm in New York City and her nights performing on the downtown club and cabaret circuit. In the fall of 2005, Jill relocated to Austin to pursue an MFA in studio art at the University of Texas, which she received in May of 2008. As one half of the performance duo, the HoHos, she performs with long running NYC show, Losers Lounge as well as at the annual Stevie Nicks tribute event, Night of 1,000 Stevies. She is currently organizing “public, performative interventions” for the collaborative group, Skote, which she co-directs with Alex P. White. Additionally, she is a founding member of the Austin Video Bee, a multimedia video collective that seeks to promote experimental and innovative work by underrepresented artists. In 2007, Jill received an ArtsReach grant from the University of Texas. In 2008, the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places program, in conjunction with the 2009 Texas Biennial, awarded her a Temporary Outdoor Projects grant. She currently resides wherever it is necessary for her to be.

Monofonus was proud to collaborate with Jill to produce the book that accompanied her recent one-woman show at the Texas Biennial. Let me Entertain You is a collection of writings that inspired the artist, or as she called it, a “celebration of process.”

Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, Michael graduated from University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in 1994. He is currently working towards his MFA at Columbia University (expected May 2009) and occasionally resides in Austin, Texas.

Michael collaborated with his former band, Diagonals, as part of our IF Series: His painting, R2-DTrees, graces the cover of Valley of the Cyclops, which was paired with his short comic “I Could Be Happy” for Monofonus Press’ IF 05 release.  His work also appears on Diagonals’ self-titled ep release, below.