We Speak Music
maq 22 Collapses Genre and Mythology on the Bold ‘MUNINN’
If music is memory, then MUNINN is a vivid excavation of the subconscious. On his new EP, rising experimental artist maq 22 fuses Electronic Rap with Hyperpop in a bold, genre-defying tapestry that feels simultaneously futuristic and intimately personal. Named after one of Odin’s ravens—the embodiment of mind and memory—the six-track project is less a conventional release than a guided descent into sound, myth, and introspection.
The opening track, “Burn The Sigil”, immediately sets the tone. Metallic percussion and ritualistic synths create a sense of incantation, as if the listener is stepping into a sacred circle. It’s a striking introduction, a sonic ritual that embodies intention, release, and the catharsis of creation. From the first beat, maq 22 signals that this EP will be as much about atmosphere and experience as it is about lyricism.
Central to MUNINN’s cohesion is the collaboration with Russian producer Tiresss, who produced five of the six tracks. His production is sharp, layered, and restless—an ideal canvas for maq 22’s elastic vocals, which move effortlessly between aggression, vulnerability, and hypnotic flow. The synergy between artist and producer transforms each track into a living organism, where beats, distortion, and melody interact as though in dialogue. On “Europa”, produced by Hellnah and Pastelfuneral, icy textures shimmer over maq 22’s urgent delivery, the song’s cosmic metaphors expanding the EP’s emotional and conceptual scope. Jupiter’s moon becomes more than imagery; it is a vessel for self-discovery and hidden depths.
What sets MUNINN apart is its balance of cerebral and visceral elements. maq 22 wrestles with themes of fear, desire, love, and existential uncertainty, often layering distorted vocal lines over dystopian textures. The mythology embedded in the EP is never ornamental; it functions as metaphor, lens, and mirror. Even in his engagement with symbols historically co-opted by extremist ideologies, maq 22 reclaims their resonance, grounding the EP in personal and cultural reflection rather than mere aesthetic flourish.
Despite its experimental edges, MUNINN maintains an emotional immediacy. Tracks pulse with kinetic energy while retaining a sense of introspective space, inviting listeners to inhabit both the chaos and the calm. Freestyle energy and improvisational vocal turns add unpredictability, ensuring that the EP never feels static. It’s this tension—between structured production and spontaneous expression, myth and personal history—that gives the project its magnetic pull.
MUNINN is brief, yet monumental. In six tracks, maq 22 constructs a world where ravens circle above neon-lit ruins, memory and mythology collide, and sound becomes ritual. The EP is not just a statement of artistic intent; it is a lived, breathing experience. With MUNINN, maq 22 proves himself unafraid to collapse genres, challenge listeners, and transform personal narrative into something expansively universal. It’s music that asks for attention, rewards contemplation, and lingers long after the final beat fades—a rare, immersive work from one of experimental rap’s most exciting emerging voices.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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