Monolake - Gobi The Desert EP in FULL!

This is a very happy post for me. Artists and songs from my listening past float in and out of my head and sometimes when they float out they don't return for a few years. Though this is unfortunate, they always return, usually at fortunate times. I digest a lot of media and sometimes some of my proven personal favorites get relegated due to the room I need for new storage and constant consumption in my bird brain. Today, while listening to the crickets in my yard, at long last Monolake flashed back into my mind's ears. I haven't posted Ambient for a while and it is the perfect time of year for this particular EP called Gobi - The Desert EP. All 37 minutes of it sounds great on a fall night when the crickets are singing their late summer songs (Seriously, put it on when you can hear a cricket/insect symphony and it is an amazing audio experience that will sound different every time you listen in this manner).

This EP, (and much more music) helped get me through some really dark times. The times when people can no longer help you any further, that's when music means the most. In my experience, I notice people traditionally reach for singers and more familiar music when they are hurting (probably due to them wanting to be comforted and familiar music often equals comfortable music). Personally, I always found that when I am hurting there is usually a fair amount of confusion in me and familiar music makes me well...almost angry. When nothing is normal anymore and the world as I know it has been flipped upside down, the last thing I want to reach for is something normal, familiar or expected (there is no comfort there for me, it only makes my head scream in the face of all the confusion). There is an element of naivete in my head scream that says, "Remember last time you felt comfortable, yeah, it was right before "said fucked up thing" happened." When things are abnormal I want music with at least a slight element of WTF, I feel less naive when I listen to it I guess. Familiar, especially vocal, music in these times is often far too direct for me and doesn't allow for interpretation or contemplation near as much as certain abstract or ambient music (of course this may differ depending on how much hurt and in what situation I find myself in). Gobi - The Desert EP really allows for mental space that a lot of music, event a lot of ambient music, does not allow for and I am grateful it exists. I hear elements of silence, confusion, chaos, contemplation, meditation, anger, innocence, laziness, struggle, past memories and future questions. To sum it up: the sound of blunt existence and all that comes with it. I wish you Zen-filled listening.