Stairstep released his first EP, Manuscrito, on October 31st. We hope some of the sounds caught your attention while you enjoyed a spooky Halloween season.

For the next release batch, Nordi wears the astronaut suit and takes us on his spaceship back to the Atlas universe with his new track: NASA – coming out on 6th December 🚀

Nordi comes back to our planet in his purest form with an exciting maxi-single release as part of the Atlas compedium: Pure & Pure (Acoustic) – coming out on 19th December 🧘‍♂️

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Another monthly creative weekend arrived, and its destination: Northampton, as per usual.

Do you remember when I mentioned in the last blog post that the train was quite empty at the time (October) when compared to September's journey? Well... This time round it wasn't definitely the case. The train company decided to reduce the number of train cars provided for this trip from 8 to 4. The result... not satisfactory since the train was absolutely packed, which made me stand for half of the journey's duration. It could be worse; nonetheless, West Midlands Trains should provide a more accurate passenger-to-seat ratio for the journeys. Heeey! At least I got the train on time haha

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During this weekend, over the two sessions, we practically came to a conclusion regarding the tracklist featured on Aliança. 

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The first session on Friday made us explore a concept related to Portuguese gastronomy. Something new that we have never tried before! A quirky, groovy song with Stairstep and Nordi swapping languages on the lyrics when compared to last week. This time round, Stairstep starts the song singing in Portuguese, and Nordi finishes rapping and singing in English. 

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Saturday afternoon, we went on a lovely trip to Leicester. For those who don't know, this was Rafael & Raquel's first home city when they moved to the UK, and where they met. There, we explored a couple of cafés and purchased some vinyl & cassette tapes from the local record stores.

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Finally, the Sunday session. Every second session tends to be slightly rushed since these are the days when I (Miguel) return to London.

This time we only had 1 or 2 hours of spare time, since we met some friends at the town centre in the afternoon. Nonetheless, I managed to sample one of the peculiar cassette findings from Leicester – Benedictine Gregorian choir chants (I'm convinced we're going to get great use out of this tape in future Monkery projects). Additionally, I managed to add a SP404 drum beat as the foundational groove for the track.

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We were so much in the zone that we didn't notice time flying... It was already 8 pm and I had the train back to London due at 8:16 pm! Rafael tried to drive as fast as he could to Northampton's station, but ultimately, I missed the train. Well, at least I missed it for a good cause haha 

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We're taking a Christmas break from sessions in December, as we're heading back home for the Holiday season. However, expect us to be back in January next year.

Until then, give Stairstep's Manuscrito another spin & don't miss out on Nordi’s trip to space with NASA & his maxi-single Pure.

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Stay warm & jolly during this Christmas season, fellow monks!