Manco
Gig Seeker Pro

Manco

Austin, Texas, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2014 | SELF

Austin, Texas, United States | SELF
Established on Jan, 2014
Solo Folk Alternative

Calendar

Music

Press


"Manco - The Great Wall"

Manco serves up a style of alternative folk that at first listen is deceptively minimalistic. The core of Manco lies in his far-reaching vocal performances and easy guitar melodies. Though there are other elements to The Great Wall—primarily keyboards and drums—the common thread throughout the album is a sparse, warm sound.

The album opens with a heavy country-western slant. “Good and Low” is accented with just enough twang to be a cowboy song, with the crux of the lyrics being the limitations of time and the irony in wondering about one's own mortality. He tells us there's only enough time to love the people close to us and “leave them with a song.” This is one of the more traditional sounding songs on the album and a great way to start things off. It moves at a brisk pace but is still engaging. The track that follows “Argentina” carries much of the same feeling as the previous song in terms of sound but is decidedly slower, reflecting the more somber shift in mood.

This time Manco tells the story of someone who can't go home, and the song's ending introduces a major earmark of his style: before singing the last line an electric guitar solo comes in to add a bit of a twist on the song, giving it a brief biting moment. Though in this song it sounds a bit plain comparatively, later uses of the electric become rough, fuzzy, humming things, everything that folk is not. It's a nice choice that distances him from others in the genre, but we'll talk about them in more detail in a second.

The Great Wall does have a few upbeat moments thrown into the mix. “Wreck” is a glowing love song made all the more brighter by Larisa Montanaro's backing vocals. “Move Slow” while somewhat more ambiguous in writing than the rest of the album again falls back on the album's early country styling with a steady strum and some select picking to punctuate the end. It's a nice counter-balance: though it isn't fair to say The Great Wall is downbeat overall, these two tracks shine the most and are certainly the most uplifting.

To return to the electric guitar, each song that showcases it uses it differently, utilizing tones and textures to match or even alter the mood entirely. In “10-Speed” there's a thick layer of buzz in the song's final moments: a dense riff rises and falls in the background as a separate solo plays out on top of it, sounding much sharper and growing more frenzied before reaching the conclusion. “Hope to Gain” builds up to the chorus like a storm, cuing up the dense, buzzing electric notes like thunder. It's nice that some thought went into how best to use the instrument rather than just plopping down solo after solo.

Overall The Great Wall is a mixture of tradition with alternative embellishments. While it's not exactly genre bending, most songs have enough of a different identity from one another to keep the casual listener engaged while regular folk and country enthusiasts will find more than enough to keep them hooked. - The Equal Ground


Discography

The Great Wall (Winter 2015):
1. Good and Low
2. Argentina
3. Wreck
4. 10-Speed
5. Trains (Don't Let Go)
6. Hope to Gain
7. Move Slow
8. Hold Me
9. Bee Sting
10. Soldiers

Photos

Bio

Manco is an Austin, TX-based alternative folk artist whose music transports the listener to a darker, heavier headspace than the ordinary singer-songwriter commonly ventures. Equally comfortable delivering falsetto harmonies over sparse acoustic guitar or cutting angry electric lead lines over looped samples, Manco blends vocally-driven folk with thick, dark pop. The result is intimate and complex.

Manco's full-length debut, The Great Wall, is a concise, beautiful take on the darker side of modern folk, skillfully layering polished folk with the fuzzy grit of British alternative rock. While The Great Wall is a musically diverse offering, the album's single strongest selling point is Manco's pristine, unadulterated vocal performance.

Honing his chops in several Austin indie rock bands before his solo project, Manco finds himself equally at home delivering The Great Wall's soaring vocals as he does handling a gritty electric guitar solo, and his music greets the listener like a session of Dallas Green (City and Colour) sitting in with an alternative outfit like Travis or Radiohead. Manco unites simple, approachable folk with powerful, modern instrumentals, showcasing a complex balance of vocal melody, introspective lyrics and instrumental power.

Band Members