Monkey Power Trio - Hacking Through the Tentacles of Despair

  by Mark Rowland

published: 24 / 7 / 2004

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Review

The Monkey Power Trio are unique. A band that never plays live and are only in the same room for one afternoon a year. The MPT never practice, pride themselves in their lack of technical ability and have released an EP a year since 1995, each on different coloured vinyl and each with artwork penned by the band’s vocalist, Mark Maynard. Every one of those has been hastily recorded with the minimum of fuss – no messing around with all that production crap. In short, the Monkey Power Trio are the ultimate lo fi band. Despite their low key releases and lack of heavy promotion, over the last couple of years the MPT have been getting more and more recognition, as DJs like John Peel have started playing their songs on a regular basis. The band also managed to get a song onto a Fox Sports advert in America almost by fluke. Their latest release, ‘Hacking through the Tentacles of Despair’, was recorded in 2003's afternoon session, and by their own admission, is their most professional work to date. Don’t expect a glossy, sweeping rock opera though. The MPT start as they mean to go on with ‘Robot Woman Meets Monster Man’, a lurching, sludgy alt-rock track comprising of two ‘chords’, a basic lead fuzz guitar line, piercing flute lines, slurred vocals and a simple drum rhythm. It’s also absolute genius. They follow this with ‘Butt Science’, a punk disco track that, as the title suggests, is to do with scientific and mathematical studies into the derriere. It also features some nice ukulele work from guest member, Anne Wing Shapiro , who also features on the B-side tracks ‘TV’ and ‘UFO’. ‘TV’ has a surprisingly catchy vocal line and is probably the most tuneful of the tracks here, which can’t be said for ‘UFO’ the track with the shakiest melody, but in the best possible way. If you like your music raw and with a punk attitude, you don’t get much more raw and punk than the Monkey Power Trio – a band that follow the punk ethic so closely that after almost ten years, they still refuse to learn how to play. Great tunes, played badly.

Track Listing:-

1 The Robot Woman Meets The Monster Man
2 Butt Science
3 TV
4 UFO