Monkoora

Artist: Monkoora

Julie Fern Crawford’s work as Monkoora is dynamic, original and earthy. Taking elements of hip-hop, ambient and psychedelic rock, she blends rusty saws, autoharps, whistles and detuned ukuleles with crisp, lucid beats and multi-layered vocal harmonies. Pop hooks, complex found sounds and ethereal folk melodies combine to make something utterly unique and bewitching. 

Based in Glasgow, she released her mini-LP Pale Slopes in 2016, lyrically exploring sexual politics and identity, existentialist philosophy and desire. A multi-disciplined, multi-talented creator like Monkoora cannot help but draw comparisons to the likes of Bjӧrk, Kate Bush, Grimes, or even Scottish contemporaries like SAY Award Winner Anna Meredith, who handpicked Crawford for an artists’ residency in 2016, which saw her perform her final piece at the Manchester Science Museum.

2016 was a big year – she composed the music for four short ‘Survivor’ films for the charity Rape Crisis, produced a short video for BBC The Social, and was nominated for ‘Best Newcomer’ at the 2016 Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMAs). Her debut show at Glasgow’s Old Hairdressers was accompanied by art from I’ll Be Your Mirror and Kris Kesiak, and since then, she has supported Let’s Eat Grandma, Shield Patterns, DJ Rebecca Vasmant, and played at the Havana Glasgow Film Festival. 

With Nuclear, Monkoora returned to greet 2017 with a bold, striking new collection of songs. At times, Monkoora’s self-produced, dancefloor-attuned productions echo the retro-futurist aesthetic of Chromatics, Com Truise or Kavinsky – with a sensibility rooted as deeply in 80s synthpop, house and techno as it is in both exotic and traditional folk music, she produces a witches’ brew of musical diversity. A vivid, hyperreal universe is conjured in spectral soundscapes, blissful harmonies, and melodies sure to linger long after listening. What wonders she will she weave next?

Monkoora debuted two tracks from her EP ‘Nuclear BB’ with a premiere from Line of Best Fit. It received noteable praise from the likes of List UK in their article highlighting the ‘Best New Scottish Music from April 2017’ which described the first two tracks as a ‘miniature masterpiece’. God Is In The Zine premiered the video for Bocx World describing it as a ‘playfull wall of femme-tronica, that’s at times brutal, at times funny [and] at others bold, dynamic and artistically exciting.’ 

Hot Gem will release an autumn EP by Monkoora in 2018

Audio