Monster Rally — "Cassiopeia"
Photo: Courtesy of Big Hassle
LISTEN: https://linktr.ee/Monsterrally
Monster Rally hits Texas next week with RUMTUM, four nights from May 28 to 31. The run lands on the back of "Cassiopeia," a bonus track added to "Echoes of the Emerald Sands," and it's the most movement Ted Feighan has built into a record under this name.
The album came out earlier this year via Flowering Jungle, the label and Substack community Feighan named after his 2017 sample-heavy record. It's his tenth full-length and the first with vocals. Stereogum clocked the shift right away: "This time around, he's doing something different."
For fifteen years the project meant an SP303 and a vinyl collection, exotica and tropicália chopped up with hip-hop and soul into what Grimy Goods once described as "sun-soaked alternative dimensions full of insatiable grooves." Echoes is recorded from scratch at Feighan's Cleveland home studio. No samples.
The visuals came first. Feighan was making collage art before he made music, and Monster Rally started as a soundtrack for the worlds those collages occupied. "Misplaced and familiar, but also like very weird," he told KUCI back in 2013. He still designs every cover himself and freelances on the side for Topo Chico, June Shine and Urban Outfitters.
The guest list reads like a group chat. TV Girl, Jordana, Mei Semones, LEISURE, Sessa, TOLEDO, Munya, Benét, Miles Michaud of Allah-Las. A rework of Henry Mancini's 1961 track "Lujon" sits in the middle of it.
"Cassiopeia" pairs Feighan with composer Jay Wadley, whose recent screen credits include "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" and "Tell Me Lies." Both came up through heavier music before landing in cinematic territory. Wadley brings live drums, bass and falsetto, and the result lands closer to disco than anything else on the record. Probably why it's a bonus.
"Before, I think I was making beats," Feighan said. "With this album, I'm writing songs."
Start with "Holiday Haze" featuring LEISURE and work down the tracklist. Texas dates are at Tulips (Fort Worth), Paper Tiger (San Antonio), Brushy Street Commons (Austin) and Meow Wolf (Houston).