Manafonistas

Will 2013 be a strange year? Some highly expected records (at least in some circles) have titles that might send shivers down your spine: “The Terror”, “Pale Green Ghosts”, “The Beast in its Tracks“ – and “Wandermüde”.

John Grant’s background story for PALE GREEN GHOSTS: “Moving to Reykjavik, at the age of 43, was incredibly risky and scary, I didn’t know anyone here, but I’ve built up a life here, and recorded an album I’m really proud of, that distils what I’m about down to its most essential components, better than ever before. And this was during the middle of health issues. It means I’m trying to take the bull by the horns, and to live.“ 

Josh Ritter’s background story for THE BEAST IN ITS TRACKS: „I wrote and recorded this record in the 18 months after my marriage had fallen apart. All heartbreak is awful – my broken heart wasn’t unique. But writing these songs was helping me get through the night and I didn’t have the strength to care or question. It felt like a different record from the start. Far from the grand, sweeping feel of the songs on So Runs the World Away, these new ones felt like rocks in the shoe, hard little nuggets of whatever they were, be it spite, remorse, or happiness. I told all this to Sam Kassirer, my producer and friend. If we recorded these songs, which felt so personal, their starkness needed a corresponding simplicity of production. I hadn’t composed this stuff, I’d scrawled it down, just trying to keep ahead of the heartbreak, and they needed to be recorded like that.“

WANDERMÜDE: „david sylvian’s experimental breakthrough blemish sees a new interpretation in the album wandermüde, by the remarkable electroacoustic musician stephan mathieu. working from the instrumental source material, mathieu brings us a new experience of the most stirring textures and darkest thoughts from this pivotal album.“

There’s no music from The Flaming Lips‘ new album THE TERROR available yet. Though several songs are supposed to be „creepy“. So, in the meantime, (to lighten the mood a bit after this short trip through upcoming albums that are full of chasing one’s demons, ghosts, shadows – and hopefully some irresistible tunes), you can find a video of Wayne Coyne and Stephen Colbert crowd-surfing in matching giant hamster balls. Enjoy.

James McNair: On Saturday Night from HATS you sing,“Meet me outside the Cherry Light“ – was that a pub or a club in Glasgow?

Paul Buchanan: No, it’s just an image, really. If I’m being honest, there was a BHS I knew on Sauchiehall Street, and outside there with the window all lit up was a popular place to meet your date. You’d see other guys waiting on their girls. Cherry Light just seemed more poetic than British Home Stores.

„One day, as I recall,  Life Magazine arrived with The Beatles guitarist George Harrison featured on the cover, along with a man holding a weird looking instrument with a funny name. The instrument was called a sitar and the gentleman holding it and playing it was Ravi Shankar. The accompanying verbiage explained that Mr. Harrison was taking sitar lessons from Mr. Shankar. As I was studying this and trying to take it all in, my mother said, „See, that’ll be the next big thing now. Everybody will be playing those things instead of guitars“

„No way,“ thought I. I had already worn out and memorized an entire Fender guitar and amplifier catalog by thumbing through it and dreaming of owning those instruments. I was showing promise as a guitarist. My instructor had said so. Rock and roll and long hair and love and peace and screaming fans and adrenaline were what I craved. Not a goofy looking, uncomfortable gourdy thing played by a guy in his pajamas that sounded to my young ears like a swarm of mosquitos hopped up on a sugar buzz. Besides, I would never be able to transport a sitar on my Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycle.“