Unease doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it accumulates through cycles—habits of thought, repeated gestures, sounds that return without resolution. That sense of slow internal pressure sits at the core of Monopolar by Strange Fruit, the Jakarta-based group known for blending subdued electronic rhythms with softened shoegaze contours. After a long period of quiet, the band re-emerges with new material slated for 2026. Rather than signaling rupture or reinvention, the track feels deliberately continuous: restrained, inward-facing, and attentive to atmosphere over declaration.
Monopolar, the new single from their forthcoming album Drips, unfolds through circular motion rather than forward thrust. The track advances at a measured pace, anchored by a low-end pulse that presses on without resolving, while textures repeat and subtly recalibrate. Nothing here rushes toward climax; instead, the song sustains itself through duration, allowing small shifts in tone and weight to register as meaning.
Baldi Calvianca’s vocal enters in fragments—elongated syllables, wavering phrases, breaths held just long enough to register tension. The voice remains suspended between states, neither fully grounded nor fully drifting. Synthesist Irza Aryadiaz has described the track as occupying a film-score-like dimension, and that sensibility carries through the arrangement: pressure builds through repetition, mirroring a mental space shaped by looping thought rather than release. Listeners familiar with artists such as The Horrors, Jagwar Ma, TVAM, Ulrich Schnauss, Primal Scream, or Pale Blue may recognize shared coordinates in tone and pacing. Monopolar, however, stays firmly within its own internal logic—defined by containment, motion, and quiet insistence.
“This is essentially a restless, unsettled song—an odd and slightly absurd mood,” says Calvianca. “Monopolar represents a bottled-up unease, the kind of activity that happens when you’re in dialogue with yourself. It’s about holding onto dreams and hope in the middle of a world that’s growing darker.” The unease he describes is not theatrical; it remains contained, cycling inward, sustained by rhythm rather than release.
The official music video, directed by Mellow Splice, extends this inward logic into visual form. Shot at PasMing Experience, the crew treated the camera like a musical instrument. Drawing on the hypnotic blues of the Indian Ocean and layers of optical distortion, the video blurs reality and imagination, capturing Strange Fruit as a rock-and-roll band performing somewhere between the physical world and the interior spaces of their own minds. Image and motion follow the same principles as the track itself, favoring repetition, texture, and perceptual drift over narrative clarity.
Listen to Monopolar below, out now via Gentle Tuesday Recordings.
Strange Fruit’s forthcoming new album Drips will be released on March 26, 2026. Pre-order here.
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