Brooklyn-based musician Ian Jacobs premieres Floors and Ceilings his latest sonic offering from his prolific self-described “nuke wave” project, Monograms.
Following up on his 2020 LP Only A Ceiling Can Stay Inside Forever, Jacobs returned to his home studio with a string of tracks that touched on the strange circumstances of the pandemic. Political crisis and the uncertainty of when life would ever return to some semblance of “normal” weighted heavy on Jacobs when recorded these new batch of songs in the harsh winter of ‘21.
This batch of new songs saw Jacobs take the project in different creative directions that coalesced on sounds reminiscent of the band’s garage-influenced early days (“Speak and Spell”) to its current obsession of minimal electronic post-punk (“For Safety”).
The EP’s standout track, “Overflowing,” is Jacobs at his most vulnerable shedding the dissonant cloak the project drapes upon itself to reveal a human texture. A warm downtrodden acoustic guitar is the centerpiece of the track while another electronic guitar echo reverberates in the vein of famed-Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. “I wish all my thoughts were weightless but I keep putting them on the scale again,” Jacobs dryly ruminates, his delivery more remaining subdued throughout the track before a lush chorus takes hold of the listener, like spring casting away winter doldrums.
Floors and Ceilings also gave Jacobs the opportunity to continue on the collaborative element of his previous album with inclusions of remixes from Hiko Men, Dante Fiero and Hexadiode.
“I wanted to collaborate with some other musicians after all this time, and the idea of doing some remixes had been abound, I also thought that maybe this would be a cool way to execute that concept from a distance. The outcome of each track was so far beyond my expectations, every time one got sent over they kinda blew me away with what they did with the tracks,” writes Jacobs in a press statement. “Each one of the producers and musicians are also friends and really so incredibly talented, the timing of working with them on it was really needed for me. Especially after all the solo work and isolation, with no shows and just really missing that connectivity thing that is such a huge part of playing music or performing, for me it came at just the right time. A perfect reminder of just how awesome and talented my friends and the outside world is.”
You can listen to an exclusive stream of Floors and Ceilings down below and preorder the EP here.