Mon Rayon’s debut album, Image Repertoire, is their latest genre-blurring record draws on 1960s French pop, baroque pop, British indie, soul, psychedelia, and spaghetti-western cinema. This band’s sound has been described as somewhere between “a full English breakfast and the Sanremo Festival in the 1960s.”
With a sort of earl grey refinement and a sincerely romantic touch, the twelve-track record kicks off with a beautiful touch of Mon Rayon’s cinematic strings on “Shadow of You,” much like you’d hear in the lush scores of Golden Age Hollywood movies. Touches of glockenspiels, harpsichords, and classic ’60s drums are artfully folded and carved into the DNA of Image Repertoire in ways that any music enthusiast would appreciate from a sonic evolution and revivalist perspective to the modern delights of new takes on genres made to age like a fine Italian wine.
Listen to Image Repertoire by Mon Rayon
At the heart of Image Repertoir is “All the Living”, which speaks to the conflicting notion of wanting
closeness while being too fearful (or too proud) to fully allow closeness in. The dreamy guitars and pop crooning between emotionally instrumental movements paint a picture around the strange and isolating understanding of your own patterns all too while still unable to break out of them.
“‘All the Living’ is about seeing through the empty façade. You know what is good for you, but you’re afraid to open yourself up to it because it might not turn out the way you want. Knowing what goes on inside your own head can make you feel as though you’re not worthy of being loved. But you still crave closeness, so you keep feeling your way forward through the darkness, held back by the pride you can’t quite let go of.”
The band recorded much of Image Repertroir as a live performance inside a Swedish converted chapel in the inspiring countryside. Joined by a host of talented musicians close to them, Josef and Christoffer collaborated with people they’ve worked with for years to bring about this special and debut record for them. Each element and musician really hit the nail on the head with their musical movements giving structure to the core of the record; the emphasis on integrity in interplay and spontaneity is palpable alongside its cleverly revived and reimagined genre inspirations that accumulated for decades before this recording. Shying away from the cold of many modern productions and genre approaches, Mon Rayon leans into a warm, soulful, and life affirming style of creation rather than over-polishing a “product” or recreation of the past.
“From the beginning, the whole idea has
been that the music should feel alive,” explains Josef Ask. “That we play together and that everything you hear is actually being played. It should feel organic, and that’s probably one of the biggest things we’ve taken from orchestral pop.”
Knowing those details make songs like “Champagne Socialistic Intuition,” “Pale Memory,” or “Sleeping Armageddon” land internally on a far more connected level than anticipated. Fans of Saint Motel, David Bowie, Beatles, Arctic Monkeys, The Beach Boys, or even the sound of Mon Rayon overall will notice that the inspirations of sounds and genres of the past are nowhere near overshadowing of the individual and unique touch of Mon Rayon theirselves. There’s a preserved approach to the integrity of songwriting, transformations airwaves into canvases of a feeling more immersive than any genre can label.
So, maybe it’d only make sense to give Image Repertoire a spin on your record player. Thanks to Flak Records, Image Repertoire is available on vinyl.
If you’re more digitally inclined, follow them on Instagram, listen to them on Apple Music, or stream them on Spotify.
Written by Samson Winsor
