Country: Italy
Genre: Ambient, experimental
Full length: Live at Kadoc
Format: Digital
Label: Supernatural Cat
Release date: June 15, 2026
Urlo, vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist of the Italian stoner/doom/psychedelic band Ufomammut, has been developing his side project, The Mon, since the late 10s. During his first European tour promoting his recent albums "Songs of Embrace" and "Songs of Abandon," he appeared at Leuven, Belgium’s Chapel of Our Lady of Fever last April to record "Live at Kadoc." The chapel, formerly a monastery and pilgrimage site built between 1641 and 1705, was sold to the University of London in 1987 and houses a religious cultural archive. Urlo describes his appearance at one of the most aesthetically striking places he ever saw as deeply meaningful.
Recorded by Stefano Tocci of Italy’s The Grid Europe studios, "Live at Kadoc" marks a starting point for a project he couldn’t guess would lead to. He recalls that night as the moment The Mon began to take shape, a moment of clarity about how to transcend a recording studio, find its voice, and express that voice before an audience. He realized evolution for his project meant releasing his vision on an appropriate stage to embody it. The chapel as historical archive and performance space transformed The Mon into something pulsating with sentience, deepening the listening experience of "Live at Kadoc."
The chapel's acoustics and atmosphere transformed the songs into architectural soundscapes with the venue itself becoming an integral part of the show, visually reflecting the ambiance conveyed through the music. The promotional video for "Incantation" offers a glimpse of this audial-visual experience, neither purely performance nor performance art, but a moment in time and space where music, art, and location merge into an independent, distinct being. The energy generated through music and visuals in a semi-darkened performance space, with an audience standing in enraptured attention, assumes a kind of surreal quality all its own.
With an archaic looking guitar and an equally archaic looking amplifier generating a grimy, sludgy sound reeking of hypnotism, Urlo commands a mass application of all minds present, and the guests in attendance themselves seem to become part of the show. It’s almost as if he is the minister and the audience the assembly. All the while a montage of images, having an impression of being projected on to a movie screen, shift in unhurried succession, coalescing with the sounds from the guitar and amplifier as electronic, ambient and folkish sounds emerge seemingly from out of nowhere to build something hallowed and obscene, immersive and isolated, imposing and vulnerable.
This six minute video is only part of the performance, and from the full release you feel you feel you were born in the place created by Urlo and you’re going to live there through eternity. This is why he doesn’t seem to need high tech equipment to create his world, his universe, and his creation transcends perceived limitations as much as the equipment he had to work with in the studio. I’m eager to see where this surge of momentum takes The Mon next. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Urlo: All instruments
Track list:
1. Smiling Dog
2. Major Arcana
3. Incantation
4. The Hidden Ghost
5. Hourglass
6. The Manure Of Our Remains
7. Mayhem
8. A Pearlescent Pulse Of Light
9. Ritual Of Night Violence
10. Embers Of Calendula
11. Echoes Of The Drowned
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