Collide with the Premiere of CrashMonkeys’ Debut EP ‘Love & Kicks’

With the advents in technology and the much easier access to and availability of high-tech recording equipment, you don’t hear a lot of unintentional lo-fi music anymore. Most modern rock avoids the imperfections of decades past, which may work for some artists, but it can also strip away a certain authenticity from the music.

Stel Furet’s goal was to work in stark contrast to these modern musical realities when crafting the sound of his new band CrashMonkeys, as you can hear today on their debut EP Love & Kicks. Officially due for release on November 18th, the five-song collection features a sound that is modern enough but also toes the line between many different generations in rock, specifically 1970s and 1980s lo-fi rock when that subgenre was undergoing a lot of evolution.

Elaborating further on what led to the music, Stel Furet shares:

“Taking something from a real-life experience I had a decade ago to finished music is incredibly rewarding. And the success ‘Control’ has had as a single has been extremely fulfilling. As the story goes, I was in NYC many years back. I was with some friends after an all-nighter, and we stumbled upon a breakfast place that had a DJ. She was spinning a lot of ’80s vinyl. I thought that was fantastic, especially for early Saturday morning.

“A unique rock-oriented feel with punch that makes you want to step on the gas and sing behind the wheel.”

“In short, I chatted her up, and we both had a love of lo-fi, low-budget production. Daniel Johnston came up, as well as a few others: The Frogs, Pavement, and so on. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the weekend, and I barely made it to work Monday morning. Those experiences really define you, and being able to put one to music is special.

“I wrapped a lot of myself into Love & Kicks, but in reality, it’s just meant to be fun. A unique rock-oriented feel with punch that makes you want to step on the gas and sing behind the wheel.”

When he began writing Love & Kicks, Furet was motivated by a specific desire to create something that would have fit well into the pre-pandemic cultural and musical landscape. Lo-fi was very important to Furet in his early years as a musician, so he wanted to rekindle that enthusiasm and emotion in his current songwriting output. The songs are reminiscent of the heyday of Pavement, Daniel Johnson, Beat Happening, and Sonic Youth, along with a dash of 1970s boogie rock. This EP was a true labour of love for Furet, as he wrote all of the songs and played all of the instruments except for drums in the recording process.

Since completing the recording, Furet has been working towards making CrashMonkeys into a full-fledged band, adding guitarist Chuck Keller to the fold, a highly polished musician who attended the Berklee College of Music and previously worked with notorious jazz composer Ray Brown. These are still early days for CrashMonkeys, but Furet hopes that he can put a little imperfection back into the current musical conversation.

Artwork for the EP ‘Love & Kicks’ by CrashMonkeys