photos by Simone Muri
Embrace The Abandon is the two-album series by THE MON, the solo vision of Urlo, vocalist/bassist of the long-running Italian heavy-psychedelic trio Ufomammut, as well as the co-founder of the internationally renowned poster art collective Malleus Rock Art Lab and of the independent label Supernatural Cat.
Where Ufomammut projects massive, otherworldly soundscapes, THE MON offers a more vulnerable and introspective experience. The music moves through shadowy electronic landscapes, ambient textures, and hypnotic dark folk, always guided by an emotional core that searches for meaning, balance, and transformation.
The name THE MON evokes several layers of meaning: a contraction of “demon,” “monk,” and the Japanese word 門 (mon, meaning “gate”), a symbolic passage toward altered states of consciousness and inner truth. This duality of light and dark, sacred and profane, runs through the entire project.
THE MON’s Embrace The Abandon is structured in two complementary chapters – Songs Of Abandon and Songs Of Embrace – the project depicting a journey of duality: loss and surrender on one side, acceptance and rebirth on the other.
Following the November 2025 release of the somber, acoustic guitar-driven Songs Of Abandon – perhaps the most intimate and vulnerable work Urlo has ever created – its companion album Songs Of Embrace is now ready to be heard. Songs Of Embrace is an instrumental counterpart – darker, ambient, and ritualistic – expands the emotional landscape of the series, rather than closing it. While the first part explored abandonment and loss, this one focuses on presence, proximity, and the physical act of staying. It is the answering breath, the inner voice. The album avoids resolution and comfort, embracing slowness, repetition, and bodily tension. It is not just music, it is a stream of consciousness, an inner search, a way of inhabiting what weighs without letting go.
While Songs Of Abandon is a collection of songs, nine tracks written in nine days, Songs Of Embrace is a continuous musical flow. It is a movement that changes, grows, erupts, slows down, settles, and rises again. Like the sea, it’s calm and still one moment, then moved by a simple breath of wind, suddenly breaking into a storm. The pieces are deeply interconnected, like embraces: some bring comfort, others carry pain; Compositions meant to be listened to in one continuous breath, allowing yourself to be held, rocked, and sometimes pushed away, just like in an embrace.
Songs Of Embrace was written, performed, produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Urlo at The Howl, Italy, and as with all Supernatural Cat releases, completed with artwork and videos by the Malleus Rock Art Collective.
Urlo reveals, “Songs Of Embrace was conceived more like a work of classical music, a suite: Different parts unfolding one into the next, each a continuation of the previous one, finding meaning only as a whole. For this reason, choosing individual tracks to represent the album is difficult. The pieces are deeply interconnected, like embraces: some bring comfort, others carry pain. These are compositions meant to be listened to in one continuous breath, allowing yourself to be held, rocked, and sometimes pushed away, just like in an embrace.
“‘Incantation’ is the first piece I chose to introduce Songs Of Embrace. It acts as a bridge to the previous record: a repeating guitar pattern that, like a spell, an incantation, slowly unfolds through sounds and reverbs, opening the path into the album’s inner journey.”
Watch the video for THE MON’s “Incantation” RIGHT HERE and stream the song HERE.
Songs Of Embrace will be released March 6th, on digital platforms, digisleeve CD, and LP. The vinyl will be issued in a standard pressing on 180-gram White/Black marble vinyl, and an extremely limited version in a run of 100 copies pressed on 180-gram Black/White blob effect vinyl in a hand-printed silkscreen cover, crafted by Malleus Rock Art Lab on high-quality paper, with a digital download and CD included. A bundle option including both Songs Of Abandon and Songs Of Embrace is also available.
Find preorders at Supernatural Cat HERE.
Songs Of Embrace Track Listing:
1. Invocation Of The Abyss
2. Three Nails, One Heart
3. Incantation
4. The Sigil
5. A Pearlescent Pulse Of Light
6. Ritual Of Night Violence
7. Sovereign Of Silence
8. Embers Of Calendula
9. Echoes Of The Drowned
10. Embrace The Abandon
Following the release of the new album, Urlo will perform as THE MON across parts of Europe on tour with Kariti from March 18th through May 5th. View the routing and find info and tickets for all shows HERE.
https://www.urlothemon.com
https://themon.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/urlo_the_mon
https://www.facebook.com/urlothemon
https://www.youtube.com/@TheMon_official
https://www.supernaturalcat.com
https://www.facebook.com/Supernaturalcat666
https://www.instagram.com/SupernaturalCat_recs
https://www.malleusdelic.com