Some albums take their time. Since 2020, XAVIER MONAX has recorded around twenty songs, and choosing between them was not always easy. But the starting idea never changed: to make a record where the bass, an instrument too often underrated, would play a central role, in the melodic lines as much as in the lead parts.

The bass up front

For this new album, Xavier Monax wanted a fully self-sufficient production, even if it meant going off the beaten track. He wrote, played and built everything himself, keeping a cold wave and post-punk aesthetic throughout, with a very “spleen”-laden instrumentation. The result: twelve tracks where guitars and bass stack up effortlessly, with bass lines that are by turns heavy and melodic, carried by airy guitars and atmospheric textures.

The Call, the figurehead

The album opens with The Call, which serves as the single. Beneath its shoegaze surface, the track reveals a bouncy bass line, probably inspired, as its author admits, by Simon Gallup’s playing. Elsewhere, songs such as The Sound from My Mind and Leaving the Darkness take on a more cinematic dimension that keeps the listening fresh. Through Is It the Stars, White Rooms, Don’t Shoot the Pianist, Quiet Again and Back in Town, all the way to the closing From Here, a sonic journey across twelve landscapes takes shape, between rhythm and atmosphere, weight and light.

About the artist

From the Bordeaux area, Xavier Palau, known on stage as XAVIER MONAX, is a guitarist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He started out solo as Monax with intimate, pared-back songs marked by hypnotic guitar textures and melancholic melodies, influenced by The Cure, Dominique A and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

In 2019 he joined the Bordeaux band Herein, where his guitar found a new electricity, between post-punk and darker indie rock. With Music for the Basses, he returns to the freedom of self-production: no middlemen, just the artist, his instruments and the sound.

Find him here and there:
Listen to Music for the Basses on Bandcamp