photo by Noelle Omer
Monomath: Smart Music for Clever Ears By Marc T. Michael In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that before I started my research for this article I didn’t know “Math Rock” was a thing (well, except for the “School House Rock” exploration of multiplication tables). Oh sure, I’d heard it, some of my favorite bands are or were early progenitors—but I didn’t know there was a name for it before I sat down to talk with the guys in Chattanooga’s very own Monomath.
Elements range from Captain Beefheart to Devo with a dash of Lord Buckley
Monomath features Chris Lanza on drums, Brian Hennen on bass and Gabe Barrett on guitar and vocals. Starting way back in 2009, the power trio was originally a duo, until the arrival of Hennen on bass guitar in 2011. The fellows augment their sound with a bevy of effects and looping pedals and this combination of precision playing, unusual time signatures and effective use of modern technology suggests that perhaps Monomath is the answer to the question, “What if a bunch of engineers suddenly became rock stars?” To my knowledge none of
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18 • The Pulse • september 19-25, 2013 • chattanoogapulse.com
the members of Monomath are actually engineers, but the title of their first EP, An EP, certainly supports the notion. As straightforward and nononsense a moniker as An EP is, you might expect track listings such as “Track One,” “Track Two” and the beloved stadium anthem, “Track Three,” but no such tracks exist. Not yet, anyway. Instead the listener is graced with four well-produced titles: “Playing Post Office,” “Loosen Up the Reigns,” “Hog Jammin’” and “A Climb Down in 7.” Three of these four tracks are peerless, purely Monomath, but on “Playing Post Office” the boys are clearly channeling the ghosts of Stew-
art Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting, which is an already impressive feat made that much more noteworthy by the fact that those fellows are all still alive. Lush ride cymbals, chorused guitar and soaring, airy vocals come together in a way that leads one to ask, “How in the world do three guys cover so broad and dynamic a range of sounds?” Honestly, they’re like the Hershey’s Kiss of progressive music. If “Playing Post Office” is an inadvertent paean to the Police (or even an advertent one), then “Loosen the Reigns” seems to be an exploration of what might have happened if Syd Barrett hadn’t done quite so many drugs.