There’s something magnetic about music born from shared isolation. Monks of Symbiosis, a band whose name already evokes unity and coexistence, embody that energy completely. Formed during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world shut its doors and musicians everywhere found themselves cut off from the familiar rhythms of live performance, six musicians from across Dallas-Fort Worth’s wide-ranging music scene ended up under one roof. That roof happened to be on Mistletoe Farm, a country house that became both their creative sanctuary and accidental studio. What emerged from that unexpected living arrangement is something more intimate and raw than a typical collaboration—it’s music rooted in spontaneity, survival, and the joy of finding common ground.
Their self-titled album captures the spirit of those days and nights when the outside world stood still, but their inner worlds spun to the beat of shared ideas. With no shows to play and no pressure to conform to commercial expectations, they did what any true musicians would: they jammed. Thursday nights became sacred, lit by firelight and fueled by a simple rule—play something new, unrecorded, or make something up entirely. It was the kind of magical constraint that turns creativity loose. And it worked.
Their single, “Little Bird,” gave listeners a gentle yet telling glimpse into that space. “Little Bird” is an offering on an album that deliberately resists sticking to one genre; the track is like a hush between storms—a featherlight encouragement from voices that know the weight of silence. It’s not flashy or overproduced. It doesn’t need to be. Instead, it drifts in like a warm breeze across an open field, reminding you that sometimes the most powerful art comes from people who weren’t meant to be in the same band, but chose to be in the same house.
What makes Monks of Symbiosis compelling isn’t just the story of how they came to be, though that’s undeniably fascinating. It’s how they use that backstory not as a gimmick, but as a grounding. Each song feels like a moment captured from that era—somewhere between escape and surrender, comfort and chaos. “Little Bird” feels like a note passed between friends when words were too heavy to speak aloud. It doesn’t scream for attention. It simply perches, quietly echoing the essence of a time when small acts of creation felt revolutionary.
The album is more of these genre-fluid, heart-rooted tracks—ones shaped not just by varied musical backgrounds, but by shared meals, communal spaces, and the kind of lived-in collaboration that can only happen when your bandmates are also your housemates. Monks of Symbiosis may have started out as an answer to isolation, but what they’ve created feels like a manifesto for something much more enduring: the beauty that blooms when artists let go of boundaries and lean into the unknown—together.