Monorail is a personal, introspective record that muses on the interplay of memory and nostalgia. It’s also got bagpipes.
Sydney artist 198archie has always created with a freeing disregard for genre conventions. His debut record 26 Minutes of Music traversed everything from 90s dance to trip-hop, with a Peter Bjorn and John cover slotted casually right in the album’s middle. On Monorail, 198archie leans slightly more acoustically, with a Jon-Brion-esque production style that’s impressively technically and playful in its range of influences.
Most tracks on Monorail are anchored by 198archie’s trademark, grungrey drum breaks. These aren’t stock- standard, sedative trip-hop beats but something much grittier; they feel both strong and anchoring, yet uncertain too, sometimes glitching or skipping in time. Along with an acoustic-guitar, 198archie follows all threads that interest him, whether it be twangy country, bossa-nova or whispered, autotuned confessions.
This constant reassemblage of sounds ties back to the albums’ theme itself — the clunky, obtuse Sydney Monorail as an avatar for our relationship with experiences from our past, where something that maybe was actually not that good (a transport system that literally only went in one direction) has gained an aesthetic romanticism through the passing of time. Similarly, by touching on ‘daggy’ 90s/2000s chamber-pop sounds, on Monorail 198archie poses that perception is still largely, to an extent, what we make of it. It’s a skill that all great pop songwriters have – the ability to synthesise influences and ideas into something new and totally original.
Words by Lindsay Riley