Monsieur Job – Chow Chow eyyy Pow Pow
URL: tobyholguin.com/
Basswalk Latino’s act Monsieur Job is sure to make big waves in both the pop and world music scene thanks to their debut release, a single titled “Chow Chow eyyy Pow Pow”. The three minute thirty one second track features the vocal skills of No Mercy’s singer Martin Citron fronting the quartet of Toby Holguin, Stan Kolev, Leo Jaramillo, and Charlie Illera. The song came together in three different studios, but there’s no clumsy stitching marring the tune and the songwriting partnership of Holguin and Kolev prove to be discerning, tasteful, and unabashedly entertaining. Monsieur Job is unique, as well, in the contrasting sensibilities they effortlessly merge here – Columbian born Holguin, Jaramillo, and Illera join European born Kolev without so much as a hiccup and the band’s experience with both pre-recorded music and electronica meshes quite nicely with their knowledge of live music to make for one of 2018’s more notable music experiences thus far.
It’s an experience from the first. You can hear from the opening notes alone that something special is coming together here; the striking percussion and fat bass laden through the song’s beginning set an early authoritative tone and rattles the rib cage. It’s music that connects physically with listeners – many will thrill to the hard hitting, yet warm, sound Monsieur Job takes on with “Chow Chow eyyy Pow Pow” and there’s more to catch the ear as well. Extra instruments come in over the course of the song without ever taxing listener’s patience or the song’s structure. Instead, the three and a half minutes it takes to bring the radio edit of “Chow Chow eyyy Pow Pow” to a close provides the arrangement ample time to gradually unveil the song for listeners. Hearing them make such creative use of dynamics is one of the real joys of listening to this debut single.
They give the vocals a refreshingly organic treatment with only a minimal amount of effects added to the singing. The production envelops Martin Citron’s singing with a warm veneer, but his voice does much of the heaviest lifting thanks to the superb phrasing and intonation he adopts for the performance. If he has any reservations about singing Spanish lyrics for a global audience, he doesn’t betray any hesitation. He sings the song’s words, instead, seemingly focused on surrounding them with every ounce of meaning he can impart and it overcomes any barriers to understanding. Monsieur Job will appeal to higher brow listeners and laid back music fans alike and one can’t help but wonder where they will take their unique sound from this point on. “Chow Chow eyyy Pow Pow” opens their career up with a ferociously creative start that sets the bar high for everything they do from this point on. The multi-cultural overtones of the song make it one of the more notable single debuts in recent memory, not just this young year.
I-TUNES: itunes.apple.com/fj/music-video/chow-chow-eyyy-pow-pow-feat-no-mercy/1312809982
Alonzo Evans