- Mano Le Tough dusts off his guitar for an eccentric LP of pop songs and house tracks.
- Niall Mannion's sound as came of age when a number of dance music producers were starting to embrace pop structures in the early '10s. Although he never reached the crossover heights of fellow auteur crooners James Blake or Nicolás Jaar, his music matched the era: delicate and lush, with some major sad-boy feels. This culminated with an LP that received airtime at both CircoLoco and NPR, 2015's Trails. Since then, Mannion's studio output has slowed—we've only heard a few EPs and the occasional remix over the past six years. Moving on over to DJ Koze's eccentric Pampa label, Mannion shows that six years later, he's still got plenty of tricks of his sleeve. At The Moment struts its flamboyant tail feathers across 12 guitar-centric tracks with country twang and blotches of psychedelia—even a bit of punk—alongside the usual overcast house vibes.
Don't believe me? Have a listen to "Empty Room" and tell me Mannion isn't brushing shoulders with country. The vocals and electric guitar have the type of macho bravado we heard on Matthew Dear's most recent album. And if you still need convincing, there's the Oregon Trail chug of "No Road Without A Turn," with its fingerpicked guitar solo. Alongside these twangy diversions, there are also traces of a punk snarl in Mannion's vocal delivery. On lead single "Aye Aye Mi Mi" Mannion's voice has a turn-of-the-millenium New York edge to it, falling in that space between electroclash and Julian Casablancas and "Moment to Change" has a surf rock haze to it.
The dance floor tracks also have a bit more oomph to them this time around. On "Pompeii," he channels Koze's eccentricity with a screwy disco sensibilities and neon bleeps, while the synth lead that pops in on "Fadó Fadó" channels the kitsch of a budget Kung Fu movie (in the best way). Even on the tracks when he is working with his old emotional palette of melancholic and broody house, something has changed. We hear this on the brief stand-out "Short Cuts," whose yearning keyboards and strummed acoustic guitar is more Explosions In The Sky interlude and less Dixon closing song.
"I just felt a lot freer in terms of not thinking in a club context when it came to arrangements and BPM ranges. In the past, my records have always had one foot in the dance world while also trying to express myself. This time, I didn't want to put myself under any constraints,” Mannion explained in href=https://www.musicradar.com/news/mano-le-tough-synths-album>a recent interview about how the pandemic changed his recording process. You can hear this freedom across At The Moment. For a producer so prone to melancholy, it's a surprising and refreshing record. And I, for one, am certainly ready for more of this swaggering guitar hero.
Tracklist01. Man Of Aran
02. Empty Room
03. Snow On Bamboo
04. Aye Aye Mi Mi
05. Moment To Change
06. Fadó Fadó
07. Pompeii
08. No Road Without A Turn
09. New/cycles
10. So Many So Silent
11. Short Cuts
12. Together