Madeleine Cocolas — born in Australia, based in Seattle — has begun a new monthly music series, each track of which is a collaboration with Monolyth & Cobalt. There are two tracks in their effort so far. The series follows Cocolas’ previous “Fifty-Two Weeks” project (see [madeleinecocolas.blogspot.com](http://madeleinecocolas.blogspot.com/)), which took longer than one full year for her to complete, but during which she managed all manner of musical exercises. Like the most memorable of the Fifty-Two Weeks music, the first track in her new series with Monolyth & Cobalt achieves a natural, patient balance between classical ambient music and, well, actual classical music, of the chamber variety. Lens-flare synthesis finds its match in elegant, patiently revealed arrangements for more “traditional” instrumentation. The second track opens with a texture that seems alien to the first one, the rough sound of dirt, of gravel, of vinyl surface noise. That sound, which suggests slow toil and a state of disrepair, underlies an angelic vocal line, amid soft, lightly transformed touches of piano, until closing with a horn like that of a forlorn lighthouse.
Month one:
Month two:
Both tracks originally posted at [soundcloud.com/madeleine-cocolas](https://soundcloud.com/madeleine-cocolas/). More from Cocolas at [madeleinecocolas.com](http://www.madeleinecocolas.com/), and more from Monolyth & Cobalt, aka the French composer Mathias Van Eecloo, at [soundcloud.com/monolyth-and-cobalt](https://soundcloud.com/monolyth-and-cobalt) and [monolythcobalt.com](http://monolythcobalt.com/).