Mona Mur

Biography

Mona Mur (born Sabine Bredy, 29 July 1960) is a German vocalist, composer, and audio designer. Born in Hamburg to Polish parents, she first appeared on the German music scene in 1982. Seeking the angry sound of the era, she collaborated with members of Einstürzende Neubauten (FM Einheit, Marc Chung, and Alex Hacke). As Mona Mur und die Mieter, they released the 12-inch single "Jeszcze Polska", which was named Single of the Week by the New Musical Express. The group disbanded shortly after. Mona Mur lived between Paris and Berlin, experiences that influenced the darker tone of her later work. In 1985 she formed a new incarnation of Mona Mur with members of Einstürzende Neubauten, Stricher, and Flucht nach Vorn. The band toured extensively across the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany (including a show with Sonic Youth in Bremen), helping establish her cult following. In 1988 she released her self-titled debut album Mona Mur on RCA, with contributions from Dieter Meier of Yello and members of The Stranglers (JJ Burnel and Dave Greenfield). In 1990, Mona Mur and Dieter Meier recorded the album Warsaw with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Polish rock musician Grzegorz Ciechowski, though it remained unreleased at the time. She then stepped away from singing to focus on Taekwondo, earning a 3rd Dan black belt, joining the German national team, and becoming International German Vice Champion twice. In 1996 she founded monamur music production and became a composer and audio designer for the software developer Terratools in Potsdam-Babelsberg. There she developed a distinctive style of “electronic orchestration,” creating atmospheric and hallucinatory soundscapes. Her work has been featured in video games such as Velvet Assassin, Ballance, Culpa Innata II, and Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. Director Fatih Akin also used three of her songs in his award-winning film Head-On (Gegen die Wand). Mona Mur returned to singing and performing in the 2000s. Her 2004 compilation Into Your Eye collected over 20 years of material, ranging from 1980s punk-wave tracks to orchestrated pieces and new dark-wave songs produced with multi-instrumentalist Christian St. Claire. Since 2007 she has collaborated with former KMFDM frontman En Esch. As Mona Mur & En Esch, they released the album 120 Tage – The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence in 2009 on Pale Music.