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Echoes of the Emerald Sands album artwork [Download]
Today, eclectic producer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist Monster Rally shares his tenth full-length record, Echoes of the Emerald Sands, via Flowering Jungle. Monster Rally (aka Ted Feighan) has never been interested in staying in one lane for too long — even if that means forging a new lane of his own. When the producer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist began work on his new record, he gave himself a straightforward set of criteria: Make something unlike anything he’d made before. For someone with tastes and an artistic history as eclectic as Feighan’s, that’s easier said than done.
With Echoes of the Emerald Sands, Feighan decided to recruit a whole fleet of artists and industry friends to sing over his recordings. The list of collaborators includes LEISURE, Sessa, TOLEDO, Munya, Benét, TV Girl, X-Cetra, JORDANN, Nella, Miles Michaud of Allah-Las, Mei Semones and Jordana. The album also features a rework of great American composer Henry Mancini’s instantly recognizable 1961 track “Lujon.”
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“After I get vocals back from an artist, the track takes on a whole new life and I get into it all over again,” Feighan says. With Echoes of the Emerald Sands, he also ditched the tropical, sample-based plunderphonics that had defined his work since Monster Rally’s 2010 inception, instead recording everything from scratch at his Cleveland home studio. “This record is important to me mostly because I think I’ve proven to myself that I can create a body of work that I’m proud of without using samples or doing things in the ways I have done them in the past. I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to do it and I had a lot of self doubt, but ultimately it's been a lesson in pushing through my own discomfort to find new ways of working and a different mindset. I think Echoes of the Emerald Sands shows a different side of me as an artist.”
The album isn’t a total left turn; Feighan’s Latin inspirations still poke through on moments like the serene “Blue Bunny,” and his love of hip-hop remains evident through tracks like “Incredibly Blind.” But here, Feighan also incorporates various vintage guitars, a Mellotron, and a collection of Latin hand percussion instruments — just to name a few — resulting in some of the liveliest, most vivid music in Monster Rally history. “Before, I think I was ‘making beats,’ and with this album, I’m writing songs,” Feighan explains. “I was really worried about it sounding too different from past albums and even if I’d be able to do it at all. It’s definitely been challenging but I feel really proud of this project.”
Before Feighan began his Monster Rally project, he spent his teen and early adult years performing in various bands, eventually culminating into a successful stint as bassist for the Myspace-era screamo band Driver Side Impact. Around that time, Feighan also started collecting vinyl, and he found himself particularly drawn to cover art that felt warm and peaceful. When Feighan left Driver Side Impact, he stepped away with a sonic treasure trove that would lay the groundwork for his future musical endeavors. Referring back to his lifelong love for hip-hop and the producers famed for their sample-based beats, Feighan picked up a Roland SP303 sampler and pored over his vinyl. Monster Rally was born.
From Monster Rally’s 2010 debut EP to 2022’s Botanica Dream, he mined that vinyl collection for a stream of psychedelic beats that evoked scenes of equatorial climates and lush, faraway landscapes — not unlike the collage-based visual art he makes for himself and clients like Topo Chico, June Shine and Urban Outfitters. “The music that I find most influential are songs that make me feel like I’m somewhere else,” Feighan explains. Echoes of the Emerald Sands is an unequivocal testament to his adventurous, curious artistic spirit.
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