Get ready to enjoy music and the beach in the heart of Istanbul
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Metric
The Mono Festival, a brand new music event for fans of indie music, is preparing to shake Istanbul’s Solar Beach on June 30. The festival is hosting a series of prominent local and international names from the indie and electro-pop scene.Among the bands to perform on the festival’s main stage is Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello, which has gained a sound fan base among Turkish music lovers in recent years. The lineup for the main stage also includes Canadian new wave and indie-rock band Metric, English new wave band The Horrors, American bands Battles and Com Truise, as well as Danish group Oh Land. Opening on the main stage for the festival is local trio The Ringo Jets.
The festival’s Burn Electronica & Dubstep Stage will host performers like Bok Bok, and Grup Ses Beats Mono Festival’s Beach Bums stage will host a series of DJ performances including Mabbas, Style-ist, Yakuza, Club Bangkok, Radyo Babylon Soundsystem, DearHead and Shangri-La Soundsystem with a wide array of musical genres ranging from reggae, lounge and chillwave. The Dinamo Lounge stage will host well-renowned DJs of Dinamo FM, radio station of choice for electronic music lovers.
GOGOL BORDELLO:
Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and incessant touring. The band incorporates accordions, violins and saxophones with punk and dub styles.
The band has appeared in a number of independent films, most notably 2005’s Everything Is Illuminated in which the lead singer, Eugene Hütz, co-starred with Elijah Wood in a drama and adventure story about the Nazi purges in Ukraine. The entire group was present for one shot in which they played a brass band in a set that included the Star Spangled Banner. They also played the traditional Yiddish tune Bublitschki (little bagels). Gogol Bordello contributed the song “Start Wearing Purple” to the film’s score. In 2012, the band recorded a new song titled “Let’s Get Crazy” for Coca-Cola’s Euro 2012 advertising campaign.
METRIC:
Metric is a Canadian indie rock and new wave band founded in 1998 in Toronto. Metric consists of vocalist Emily Haines (who also plays the synthesizer and guitar), guitarist James Shaw (who also plays the synthesizer and theremin), bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key.
Their first full-length album “Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?” was released in 2003 and earned a Juno Award nomination for Best Alternative Album. “Live It Out” was released on October 4, 2005 and was nominated for the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the Canadian Album of the Year and once again the Juno Award nomination for Best Alternative Album.
The first album that the band recorded, “Grow Up and Blow Away,” was finally released on June 26, 2007 by Last Gang Records. The album was originally recorded for Restless Records, but was neglected when the label was bought out by Rykodisc. Their fourth studio album, “Fantasies,” was released in Canada and the United States on April 7, 2009. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize for Canadian Album of the Year, and won the Alternative Album of the Year at the 2010 Juno Awards. Metric won the 2010 Group of the Year award as well. Their fifth and most recent album, “Synthetica,” was released on June 12.
BATTLES:
Battles is an American experimental rock group, founded in 2002 in New York City. The current lineup is guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams (formerly of Don Caballero and Storm & Stress), guitarist/bassist Dave Konopka (formerly of Lynx) and drummer John Stanier (formerly of Helmet). Following a string of EPs, the band released their debut album on the Warp Records label in February 2006, which was titled EP C / B EP. This was a compilation of their early releases, EP C, B EP and the single “Tras.” Their first full-length album, “Mirrored,” recorded by Keith Souza at Machines with Magnets, was released on May 14, 2007. The album received positive reviews and appeared on several top album lists for 2007. Battles’ second album, “Gloss Drop,” was released on June 6, 2011 featuring guests including Gary Numan, Kazu Makino, and Yamantaka Eye, and the band announced a spring tour in support of the record. In December 2011 the band curated the All Tomorrow’s Parties “Nightmare Before Christmas” festival in Minehead, England alongside co-curators Les Savy Fav and Caribou. From February to April 2012, a series of four 12” vinyl EPs were released by the band.
THE HORRORS:
The Horrors are an English band formed in Southend on Sea in 2005. Their debut, “Strange House,” was released in 2007, while their second album, “Primary Colours,” was released in 2009. “Primary Colours” was nominated for the coveted Mercury Music Prize the same year. In July 2011 The Horrors’ third album, “Skying,” was released and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart. The group first drew the attention of critics and the public with their debut single “Sheena is a Parasite.” Their second release, “Death at the Chapel,” a high-profile show at London’s 100 Club in July 2006, and an appearance on the cover of the NME in August greatly raised their profile. As a result of this exposure, the band played the NME Awards Indie Rock Tour in early 2007 along with Mumm-Ra, The View and The Automatic, which helped garner further notoriety. The Horrors played a world tour to promote their debut album, including a performance in Istanbul for Radar Live.
