Short Stories & Quotes by Dilumi

Monstercat 024 - Vanguard: Release Week Memoir

When I say each album release is a good time to look back, I'm not saying it without reason. The release of each Monstercat album always becomes a time when some songs and albums from the past seem to send a peculiar call for me. Release week, when an album is falling into place, is a particularly good time for this because it helps me to see how the vibe of the new album will connect perfectly into every previous one so it will fit like a puzzle piece into the rest of Monstercat's musical story. What helped me to do this on Vanguard release day was listening to Invisible and We Won't Be Alone in succession and tying those together, and also letting the vibe of each album (019-023) have their fair share of time to take over my mind. Earlier on release day, when I had finalized my preorder of 024 and was waiting for it to download, I was listening to some Monstercat releases on Soundcloud, which led me into a listening journey where I got a small taste of each of the recent compilations. Specifically from 021 were The Girl and Aura, which I consider the best tracks with which to access the 021 vibe for myself. Those tracks continued to absorb my mind until later that evening, when the Perspective vibe got so vivid that I decided the very release day of 024 would also be the day I'd been waiting on for months, when I'd relisten to the 021-Perspective edition of the podcast on Monstercat Music Specials. Perspective is a great album to me because out of all the albums, it seems to have the easiest accessible and strongest vibe (meaning that it's easiest for me to get back the feelings I had for it when it released). It was so fun, and the album consumed me so much that night that it was hard to pick out the feeling (which is pretty much what happens when an album releases, and I have to look back on it to see what it truly felt like). That also helped everything tie over into 024. It's so many things that bring the vibe of an album together. Every effect of every song and each artist's inspiration for that song, including the way they feel things, their taste in music, and the events of their life at the time the song was coming together. The cover art, and the amount of deepness in each color Petirep used, as well as the action in the art, and the way it fits with the theme. What was going on with the Monstercat family and label, artists, staff, and fans before and when the album was coming together, and how that contributed to the tracklist, theming of the album itself, what each song meant to each fan when it was released, and everything. For whoever Monstercat chose to make the album mixes, it's what that person saw in each song and how the songs connected throughout the album that brought the mixes together. It's what the Monstercat staff was into at the time they were scheduling the album, what they saw in each song and how they connected, what tracks they decided to put on the album so a certain theme would be reflected, and then how every fan interprets that theme through their own eyes. Especially the moments when the staff, artists, and fans all see eye to eye in a way no one can explain, and in a way only true members of the Monstercat family can understand. And that's what brings us all together. Each album week is such a great time for the Monstercat fan to look back on the entire album era and everything that happened with the whole family as well as in their own fanhood. For me, it was changing...knowing and understanding so much more about life...making new friends in people who love Monstercat...as well as my memories with each and every song that guided me along the way. I got to see the new songs that blew my mind about the amazing direction Monstercat is going, the songs that I've grown to love over the last months, actually get together onto an incredible compilation that I couldn't help but pick up a copy of for myself once I saw just how many of those amazing tracks with great memories would be on it. I couldn't be happier that I added 024, with its incredibly strong and unforgettable vibe, to my collection. It's an album where the best of so many artists' styles have come to life in a beautiful, innovative direction, and a gorgeous collection of these tracks and memories have come together to represent Monstercat's past, present, and future along with the strength of the family through every alley of the journey, every darkness, every light, every valley, every mountain, for which there is a song to represent each step along the way and bring us back to who we are: a bunch of crazy people who love each other, love EDM, and are ready to be at the forefront and captivate the world with this insane collection of music. It's an album for the entire Monstercat family, staff, artists, fans alike, to experience happiness, to step forward and come back stronger, with a plethora of beautiful music to keep us company along this journey. But, of course, there's one part of each album week I can't imagine living without: the special 2-hour edition of the podcast, where every track of the album is played. I look forward so much to these two hours that only take place every two and a half months. I've been attending them since the release of Endeavour. When it's actually happening, I can't believe I have the privilege to be a part of it. For Vanguard, it helped me escape to a place where darkness no longer clouded my mind, and for those two hours I saw clearly. There are no bad thoughts, only the happiness always brought to me by seeing months of work develop into a finished product. It's hard to keep track of all 30 tracks released during an album era at once, so there's nothing like the album podcast to hear a recap of all the music on Monstercat in the past 2 1/2 months in a way that showcases everything the album truly is...with, of course, nothing but the album cover art itself in the background. It took until the podcast to see how Petirep truly pulled off every emotion from the album in the cover art (not like that's anything new with Monstercat). The animation with the lightning bolts helped me see how overcast the sky was on the 024 cover to match the deepness of some tracks, while songs like Emoji brought out the happiness of the daytime. The spewing water reflected the energy, and Noisestorm's face expressed the swag in the heavy tracks. One of the best moments of the podcast was the transition into We Won't Be Alone, when, to me, the whole album connected together in one moment with a transition that tied it together like nothing else could and gave me chills for one minute straight. With the cover tying into the vibe while every song connects at the same time, there's no wonder the album podcast is the time when everything about the album just seems to come full circle. The mixes were absolutely perfect. I was so impressed by the transitions. Sometimes, in mixes, the transition can tear down the original vibe a beautiful track had on its own if you aren't careful about how it's put together. But with Vanguard, every transition was delivered perfectly, and instead it was a good thing how they connected because they brought the entire album together in an amazing way for an album with such diverse sounds. It could never have turned out better, how this album came together. Because of the Daylight Savings change while we're heading into winter, everything is getting darker way quicker, and this podcast extended well into the time the sky got dark. The same thing kind of happened as in the Altitude edition, except this time there was no sunset because it was so overcast. Everything just faded into darkness, with the amount of light outside fitting well with whatever song was playing, until it got so dark I had to use a flashlight to write my review of the podcast. A lot of times, part of the album will even come together after the podcast. For me I believe it mostly came together during this one, but there are always times afterwards when I see certain tracks in new ways together. And then there's the fact that you can't truly know what something feels like until you're looking back on it. Hunted became something insane and unexplainably awesome to me only hours after the podcast, when I listened to it from my own music library and already started to think about how unforgettable of an album Vanguard is turning out to be. And through this I've been able to see that it's more than just a cover and 30 songs. It's something indescribable. At the beginning of Vanguard release week, I felt a calling that was stronger than ever to look back to the previous albums for which I've been a part of this family. But this album in particular is also a representation of how we are stronger than ever together, and Monstercat's current musical collection is more diverse and beautiful than ever with 024, meaning that to see it all fit together was more amazing than ever. This album has also made me feel more confident and ready than ever to head into Monstercat's future. 025 will be a HUGE album, so I'm totally hyped to delve into the 025 era with open arms alongside a strong family. Let's begin this journey together!

~Dilumi
November 3, 2015