photos by Simone Muri
Embrace The Abandon, the two-album concept series from THE MON, comes to a close today with the release of the second record, Songs Of Embrace, out now and streaming everywhere through Supernatural Cat Records.
THE MON is the solo vision of Urlo, vocalist/bassist of Italian heavy-psychedelic trio Ufomammut, and co-founder of the internationally renowned poster art collective Malleus Rock Art Lab and the independent label Supernatural Cat. Embrace The Abandon is the entity’s two-album series – Songs Of Abandon and Songs Of Embrace – depicting a journey of duality: loss and surrender on one side, acceptance and rebirth on the other.
Songs Of Embrace is an instrumental counterpart – darker, ambient, and ritualistic – expanding the emotional landscape of the series, rather than closing it. While Songs Of Abandon explored abandonment and loss, this one focuses on presence, proximity, and the physical act of staying. 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. Songs Of Embrace 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 writes, “After abandonment, there is no silence. There is the body. Songs Of Embrace is born there: in the moment you stop falling and begin to remain. You rise and look at yourself, searching within to learn from your mistakes.
“This is not an album about healing, it is an album about closeness, about presence, about learning to stay inside what weighs without asking it to leave. The embrace is not just comfort, it is contact, it is presence that stays, an emotion that settles within us, in the past, the present, and the future. The tracks of “Songs Of Embrace” are nothing more than a breath, a waiting, something I felt the need for. They were written slowly, leaving space for mistakes, pauses, and the parts that refuse to resolve.
“Songs Of Embrace is a request for time, for listening, for vibrations. It is the urgency to dig into the depths of ourselves to find comfort.”
THE MON’s Songs Of Embrace is now streaming everywhere, linked HERE.
Also watch the videos for “Incantation,” “Ritual Of Night Violence,” and “A Pearlescent Pulse Of Light” HERE.
Songs Of Embrace is out now digisleeve CD, LP, and digitally. The vinyl is 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 albums is also available.
US orders can be placed at A Thousand Arms HERE, and other customers can order at Supernatural Cat HERE.
Urlo will perform as THE MON across parts of Europe on tour with Kariti, with shows spread out between March 18th through May 5th. View the route and find info and tickets for all shows HERE.
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