$12 ADVANCE // $15 DAY OF SHOW
9PM DOORS // 10PM SHOWTIME

If rapid evolution is a sign of both great potential and the likelihood of realizing it, Monica LaPlante is staring down the barrel of a long and illustrious future. On 2013 debut Jour, the Minneapolis-based composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist employed sophisticated garage pop as a vehicle for ruminations on lost love, unrequited love, fleeting love, being in love with love, and all of the above. By the time LaPlante recorded 2016/2017’s Noir, her overall approach had picked up considerable muscle mass and, for the most part, gotten a fuck of a lot darker.

“Noir was always in the cards as a counter to Jour,” she explains from the last phone booth in Northeast Minneapolis. “Jour has a lot of feelings and emotions, but they’re shallow, surface feelings. Noir is deeper than that--more about being out of control. I stopped being the mopey teenage girl who didn’t ever have things go her way. My emotions bubbled over, I got off my couch and was going to MAKE things go my way.”

LaPlante’s transition from leaf on the wind to vamp on the prowl began pretty much instantaneously. Writing and recording the demo for darkside party banger “Hope You’re Alone” in a single night gave the artist enough momentum that nothing could stand in her way--for long.

“I booked studio time immediately, hoping I’d have another song,” she says. “I didn’t. The night before the session, I panicked. I had a meltdown, left the studio and drove around for an hour. I remember it was raining and I was just taking a bunch of one-ways in downtown Minneapolis. Out of nowhere I just started singing “I can’t stop, I won’t stop” over and over and over again. I went home and forced myself to work on the song. It was just that easy and emotionally free.”

As with her command of melody, the aptitude for depicting emotional nuance LaPlante showcases on “Can’t Stop” is gaining massive depth and resonance remarkably fast--especially when it comes to ambiguity. Even when she plays the budding libertine, as she does with flick-of-the-wrist ease on “Do That To Me,” she’s careful to let a little longing for something more seep through the cracks in her wall of benign indifference. Noir’s overarching affective backbone resides solely in LaPlante’s will to rock.

“For the first time my songs sound like me to me,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to make a heavy, hard-hitting record. I listen to Noir now and know exactly how I felt.”

Muun Bato includes current and former members of; First Communion Afterparty, Flavor Crystals, Driftwood Pyre, Basement Apartment & more. Joe Werner & Andy Iwanin formed Muun Bato in 2018. Vince Caro soon added his own flourishing psych sounds to the mix, followed by Timothy S Ritter on bass & synth. In 2019, Marie Debris joined the group on keys creating the final layer to Muun Bato’s dynamic sound.

• “Muun Bato channels the acid-soaked sounds of the Syd / Floyd axis via a lush paisley underground jangle where swirling organs and spacy vocals create a far out dreamy and hallucinogenic trip” - Dave Cambridge - Cardinal Fuzz

In October of 2019, Muun Bato’s self-titled/released debut LP was produced by Vince Caro and mastered by the late, great Ed Ackerson of Flowers Studio & pressed on translucent orange vinyl. Their second LP was released on October 1st of 2021 via Little Cloud Records (Portland, OR) & Cardinal Fuzz (UK).

Since performing their first show in January of 2019, Muun Bato has opened for such acts as; Mystic Braves, Triptides, Flaural, Run Westy Run & Eyelids. They were voted one of the “Best New Bands of 2019” by First Avenue, and continuously stage shows.