By: Baxtak

Mudra, the Italian producer who's known for his ritualistic and heavyweight 808-laden beats is back with his second EP for Muti Music and third overall.

Fresh from winning ill.Gates's remix contest, and with a few resulting high profile collabs on the way, Mudra takes the signature dark ethnic 808 sound he uniquely presented on Divonorum EP and throws it in a groove blender to create lithe halftime bangers. Conceptually put, this is EDM made by ghosts stuck in an eternal purgatory, picked up through spacetime anomalies and sonificated by Terrasapien shamans.

What hits home with me on this EP is how the dissonance of noisey neuro aesthetics merges with haunting ethnic melodies and a barrage of oddly-placed and organic percussions. This is evident in all four tracks, and highlight characteristic moments include the second drop on “Larva” and the entirety of “Chrysalis.”

Overall, Mudra is easily one of my favorite halftimers, hopefully, soon to be big-timers, and this is a must-listen release for fans of artists like Tsuruda, Chee, and the Renraku label.

Here are a few words from the artist himself:

What is the inspiration behind Monarch EP?

Transformation. There were changes in progress, I'm constantly changing and growing, just like everybody and everything in this universe, but at the moment, I felt that there were some significant changes in my life, killing what I was for something new, and this reflected in my music obviously and is evident in Monarch.

The artwork is pretty amazing; is it supposed to have some meaning related to the music?

What better than butterfly to represent a transformation? I met Dana Danilova, I love her works with Thom Oab, a good young sound designer, and I talked to her about the concept, I wanted a butterfly but not usual, like a new species was born, and she did the rest, which is really beautiful, I love that the butterfly basically is a monster but still elegant.

What kind of things do you sample to get those crispy percussions and ethnic sounds?

Well, percussion samples, home’s objects, toys, old ethnic music sampled, but always morphed with plugins, I like very much to miss myself into plugin combinations and transform all sounds, just this.

What's next in the production line in the world of Mudra?

For now, I have many drafts with no aim, another half-ready EP in progress which is very different, kind of a surprise also to me, some interesting collab in progress and then, I don’t know. I don’t like to make plan for a too far future, I like to make music just if i have something to express

Thanks for your time.

You’re welcome, thanks to you!

Monarch EP is out now on all major digital platforms via Muti Music.