jrmy & Decibill's new Monument Thief album

[jrmy]

In the spirit of fuzz and riffs and noise and stuff, Decibill and I have been playing out for a while now as a 2-piece called Monument Thief. I play bass at obnoxious levels through 2 boards and amps (one for treblefuzz, pitch & modulation and the other for bassfuzz and pitch) (oh, and there's a Fuzzhugger Thujone Extract that goes through both for momentary bursts of BLEEPBLOOPSKRONK). At long last, we've got our album all recorded and released both digitally and through the near-obsolete "compact disc" format. If you're interested, you can check 'em out at http://75orlessrecords.com/monument-thi ... -boxes/and https://monumentthief.bandcamp.com/album/little-boxes

We hope you like it, as ILF was definitely a prime inspiration for our descent into fuzz.

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[D.o.S.]

YUSSSSSSS

[Chankgeez]

That looks fancy. I'll bet it sounds fancy too.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Excited to listen!

[jrmy]

Awwwwww, thanks all. Hope you dig it!

It's been a real process/adventure to reconsider our entire sound and approach from the ground up... I mean, Decibill and I have been playing together for 17(!!!!!) years now, so this is hardly the first time we've switched things up, but every time there's a feeling of "Well, let's see if THIS works." While we've done things as a 2-piece before, the last version involved lots of external loops and backing tracks and stuff, which was cool, but proved kind of prohibitive in the long run. This is our first time really trying to strip things back and focus on what we feel it would take to play "rock songs" with maximum efficiency. Luckily, it didn't take us too long to get the live setup down. Hopefully now that we've got the process together for the recorded end, we'll be able to put out more stuff in the nearish future...

[mathias]

Thumbs up on this.

[jrmy]

Thumbs up on this.

Thanks man! It's so weird being in that post-release zone, sitting (er, standing) at work, looking for shows, hoping for plays. Always nice to know when folks are listening...

[JonnyAngle]

I'll dl it tomorrow but I'm a little disappointed that fever wasn't a cover of Peggy lee.

Jk lol yoloswag

[jrmy]

I'll dl it tomorrow but I'm a little disappointed that fever wasn't a cover of Peggy lee.

Jk lol yoloswag

Don't tempt us - we might just throw that cover in live...

[coldbrightsunlight]

This is great, some big riffs! The parallel signal chain bass sounds absolutely great, wouldn't think it's a two piece from the depth of sound.

[mathias]

Do you have any pics of the dual-board setup? Just curious.

[jrmy]

This is great, some big riffs! The parallel signal chain bass sounds absolutely great, wouldn't think it's a two piece from the depth of sound.

Thanks! Full disclosure, there's a lot of layering beyond the two boards going on in the recording - you'd have to ask Decibill exactly how much... but yeah. I like to think that it's all just to simulate the WHOOMPF generated by the stereo rig at full volume, but you'd have to see us live to be the judge of that.

Do you have any pics of the dual-board setup? Just curious.

I seem completely incapable of getting GOOD pics of the setup, but here's a bad photo:

jrmyboardz.jpg (279.53 KiB) Viewed 2809 times

Ridiculous to say that I can't be 100% without seeing it in person, but I think the chain goes something like this:

bass > the board on the right side: Thujone Extract (has to be first, otherwise the bleeps and bloops don't work) > MXR bass compressor > tuner > MXR M196 A/B box - that box lets me turn either channel on and off independent of each other, which is key since I'll sometimes mute the treble or bass side for dynamic effect. From there, it goes:

Bass side (bottom 5/6 of right-hand board): out of splitter > EHX Pitch Fork (clean + octave down) > EHX Pitch Fork (clean + fifths up and down) > MXR Fullbore Metal > Mojohand Colossus > Dr Scientist The Elements (master tone-shaper and grit, almost always on, with some brief exceptions) > Genz Benz Shuttle (9? 6? Some kind of number) bass amp into a custom 2x12 cab built by Decibill.

Treble side: out of splitter > EHX POG2 > Digitech Boneshaker (always on) > Wilson Freaker Wah on pressure plate > Electro Faustus Guitar Disruptor > Stomp Under Foot Red Menace > EHX Mel 9 (not used on any of the songs on the album - that was an addition after songs were recorded) > Copilot Polypus (also late addition, not on album) > Subdecay Baby Quasar > modded Boss BF-2 (supposedly upgraded chips, but I've never A/B'ed it against an un-modded version) > Fairfield Circuitry Meet Maude (pretty much set to auto-oscillate for washy swaths of noise) > Ampeg GVT52-212 (I think? guitar amp).

I could be a little off on the routing of the modulation side of the treble board, but I think that's right.

There might be some minor changes to this lineup coming soon, but this basically how it's been for the past year.

Anyhow, yeah. Lots o' tap dancing.

[JonnyAngle]

pretty cool album. I've been listening for a few days now. worth the DL

[jrmy]

pretty cool album. I've been listening for a few days now. worth the DL

Aw, thanks! Glad you dig it! We're starting to work on new songs now, so someday there could well be more in this vein...

[goroth]

Rad!!!