Monoganon Killmens

Monoganon’s vibrant blend of disjointed psych-pop and jazz-grunge bristles with energy. Alongside guitarist and singer, John B McKenna, are Andrew Cowan (guitar and backing vocals), Susan Bear (bass), and Keith Smith (drums), all providing dexterous and intuitive accompaniment.

Killmens is the incredible new album by Monoganon, AKA Malmö, Sweden based Scottish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John B. McKenna and friends. Initiallly released on November 19, 2017 – International Men’s Day (see explanation for that below) – on vinyl and digital formats, it’s the long-awaited follow-up to the critically-acclaimed F A M I L Y, which was the very first album released on Lost Map Records back in autumn 2013.

Recorded in different phases between Glasgow and Malmö and additionally featuring playing from Andrew Cowan (guitar), Suse Bear (bass), Keith Smith (drums) and Emil Isaksson (more drums), Killmens was whittled down from an initial cathartic creative outpouring of 24 songs in total, to a tight 10 track mini-odyssey surveying such diverse subject matter as macho-loathing, male menstruation, an out-of-body experience during an armed robbery, new and old relationships, expanding horizons, shifting identities and doing experimental things in the bushes with other boys as a boy. You’ll hear traces of everyone from Radiohead to Flaming Lips, Deerhoof and Julian Lynch in John’s slanted, textured, atmospheric, strange, beautiful and illogically melodic art-pop songs. But the way he pieces together his mosaics of outward experiences and inward reflections and revelations, always mindful of never entering a comfort zone, is singularly his own.

“A lot of my songs seem to start as a sort of exercise or challenge,” John comments. It’s a philosophy he extends to his live shows too, which can range from standard full four-piece live band or solo acoustic gigs, to VHS video performances, which see John wander around the room promenade style with a microphone, dressed in a kind of superhero costume, giving strange votive offerings to audience members and singing along to audio-visual versions of songs beamed onto a projector screen. They’re as much performance art pieces as traditional concerts, and they’re like nothing you’ve ever seen.

Of his decision to release Killmens on International Men’s Day, John comments: “I’m looking to admit to then destroy basic masculinity so more people can form better, complex and nuanced social-identities. Basically I just want to troll some men’s rights activists.”

ADDENDUM: The vinyl edition of Killmens contains a hidden QR code in the artwork, which takes listeners to a secret page on Monoganon’s website.