VI.BE

Monrad is the solo moniker of Matthew Ramon. Kortrijk born and raised but in need for new challenges and discovery, Matthew left Belgium, wandering around for several years before settling down in a small Italian village.

Although part of a reverb- drenched, instrumental surf punk band for most of his twenties (Rencontrez l’amour - Born of punk and reverb), he only grabbed back to music when in Italy to ease an overactive mind. Many hours and nightly sessions later, together with Filip Tanghe (recording and/or live engineering Balthazar, Warhaus), he recorded some of his first songs, trying to step away from more conventional song structures.

“This EP is beautifully produced with dark, ethereal qualities and lush arrangements. I quickly fell in love with the vocals on these songs. You can make comparisons to the deep baritone of Monrad to Matt Berninger from The National, an older Leonard Cohen or even Nick Cave” ( Jamie Funk, Divide and conquer)

After two years of digging deeper, nurturing and maturing his music and finding his voice, Matthew went back to Filip Tanghe and recorded, together with Bert Desmet and Gijs Coucke, his first full-length album ‘Wired’.

With a dark voice, floating somewhere between singing and parlando, propelling drums, seductive bass and atmospheric guitars, Monrad takes you to layered territories where harmony and tension start to intertwine.

"De Belgische Leonard Cohen woont in een klein Italiaans dorp...De veerkracht van het nummer weerspiegelt de ups en downs in onze stemming, energie en behoeften, terwijl de donkere, relaxte stem zich overgeeft aan het onvermijdelijke" (Da music)

"Door de donkere stem van Ramon wordt Monrad dikwijls met Leonard Cohen, The National en Mark Lanegan vergeleken. Wij vinden vooral dat dit soloproject een sterke eigen sound heeft. Wired is zeker één van de topplaten van 2021, een album dat je gehoord moet hebben." (Luminous dash)