The Brilliant Masses

Biography

There are (at least) two acts who use the name Monta: 1) A one-man indie-folk act from Germany, and 2) A duo from Kansas City in the US making electronic music. 3 ) The most wicked west coast lady rapper. Busting easy beats for your ears to ride the waves of the Pacific North West. 1) Monta is the one-man project of Tobias Kuhn, formerly singer of Miles. Monta makes up the centre of his work - the bottom line of his musical labour. Monta can be tender as a whistle or roaring like thunder, from...

There are (at least) two acts who use the name Monta: 1) A one-man indie-folk act from Germany, and 2) A duo from Kansas City in the US making electronic music.
3 ) The most wicked west coast lady rapper. Busting easy beats for your ears to ride the waves of the Pacific North West.

1) Monta is the one-man project of Tobias Kuhn, formerly singer of Miles. Monta makes up the centre of his work - the bottom line of his musical labour. Monta can be tender as a whistle or roaring like thunder, from homey living rooms to a stage somewhere on the globe.

After the ep "Always Altamont", the highly acclaimed first longplayer "Where Circles Begin" had been released worldwide and made it to album of the week of the Sunday Times (UK) and the single "I'm Sorry" can still be heard as theme song of the japanese counterpart to CNN news. Now there's a new single "Good Morning Stranger" and a new album - "The Brilliant Masses"!

Brilliant indeed: a collection of eleven songs who ask for careful listening and instantaneously stare into your eyes. In a language often enciphered and metaphorical yet clearly coherent and radiant as a lighthouse. Songs who can alienate people and at the same time spend warmth.

With awareness and luminosity Kuhn sums up the things and thoughts that motivate him and get him going. The song titles themselves make up the synopsis: love, estrangement, doubt, certainty, home, getting along, trust, disappointment, capitulation, achievement, loneliness, bliss and the never-ending search. Over and over and over again. Again and again packed in those awesome melodies which let the world shine in a different light for a moment or a little longer.

Monta has grown up and become a dad, also he's been around on tour for quite a bit and got lots of positive feedback and made lots of friends on the many shows he's played thus far - whether solo or with a continually changing number of great musicians. Monta got high rankings in lots of reader and listener charts yet in between there's always the often deflating and painful 'homecoming' process - having to face the things one's neglected, that still have to get done, with yourself and with the 'Brilliant Masses'.

Which results in a nearly brutally authentic piece, recording here and there in between Klagenfurt / Austria and Munich / Germany. Sometimes all by himself, at times with longtime companions and produced by the artist himself in close cooperation with Herwig "Fuzzman" Zamernik. (Naked Lunch)

"The Brilliant Masses" is going to be released early 2007 on Monta's own label Labelmate in coop with viennese Klein Records.


2) A duo from Kansas City, brothers Dedric and Delaney Moore have been producing electronic music under the moniker Monta since 1999. Their album Unsuspecting was released in 2005. According to the act's web site http://www.montamusic.com , they will expand their name to "Monta [At Odds]" for their upcoming release Live or loop. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.