You've bought pizza, a case of beer and everything's packed.Īs expected, none of your friends show up to help and you're left schlepping boxes alone all day, getting a bit too drunk," the band explains. 'Nothing' meanwhile is "about moving on a beautiful, sunny day. "It's Seinfeld, but what the hell isn't?" says Nick, adding they "pull a bit from everywhere." Completed by live drummer Adam White and live guitarist Scott Boudreau, Mauno's Rough Master is a journal of "the kind of music that's churning in our minds when we're not focused on grocery lists." Opener 'Reeling' sets the tone: a gentle lament at growing old that descends into a loose yet lush release before the chaos of 'Manitoba'. Over the course of Rough Master it strays from twisting grunge-pop on 'Again', to a breezy lilt on 'Champs', to piano ambience ('Pulses') and string-accompanied haze ('Reeling') elsewhere.īut then, what do you expect when Eliza has a background in classical cello and old R&B, while Nick boasts a record collection jammed with choral and folk? The result is an album that sounds like a windows-rolled-down summer road trip with the cast of Seinfeld.Įlaine doesn't want to listen to music, George is very focused on the road, Kramer is sporadically buzzing through his iPod listening to half-songs from every genre possible, and Jerry is reading whilst eating spicy Cheetos.
I arrived here on a failed hitch-hiking trip and just keep getting drawn back." Rough Master, the group's smart, intricate new album, has at least this in common with the city where it was forged.įull of familiar and charming shimmery guitar-and less-familiar, somewhat absurd stories written over rueful meals in empty apartments-Rough Master is a record you too will just keep getting drawn back into.įormed in September 2014, Mauno - pronounced Mao-no, and named after bassist Eliza Niemi's adamantly unmusical Finnish grandfather - have a wandering sound that refuses to be pinned down. "At times, it's really boring, which I find useful for writing songs-not being distracted. "Halifax is a weird little town," says frontman Nick Everett of the Canadian peninsula they call home, where life unfolds in a slow-drift of tiny moments never more than a stone's throw from the sea.
Mauno manitoba download#
You can but Rough Master now on cassette tape, CD, or as a pay-what-you-can download via the Mauno bandcamp page.F boredom really does breed creativity, then Nova Scotia weirdo pop-rock sophisticates Mauno must be four intensely bored individuals. A good indicator of the album as a whole, ‘benny’ is part dreamy soar, part chopped up pop song, before ‘pulses’ ties things up neatly, the title a fine description of the beautiful and almost neoclassical finale, built on a steady and rhythmic cadence, which to me brought to mind the skewed ambient aesthetic of Lejsovka & Freund. ‘Burn this’ is fronted by Eliza Niemi and has noir-ish, slinky vibes, like an easygoing, guitar-based dream pop version of Sylvan Esso. ‘again’ is all sharp little jabbing guitars and occasional swooshing crashes of percussion, as well as a frenzied build at the halfway point (and again at the end) which falls away even quicker than it arrived, while ‘champs’ begins with gentle acoustics and sounds kind of like Andrew Bird fronting The Dirty Projectors.
‘Reeling’ kicks things off with its laid back and oddball pop, complete with a clattering barrage of percussion in the finale, while ‘manitoba’ accelerates into being, giving you the woozy-gap-in-your-insides feel of a fast car or accelerating aeroplane, before degenerating into weird distorted drums which clear the air and allow things to get a little more poppy on ‘nothing’, a strange blend of manic and dreamy, messy and catchy. Previous fans of Everett’s work will be familiar with the experimental tendencies, but whereas he usually played around on the folk template, here he riffs on something altogether more pop-focused. The band have recently released an album, Rough Master, which sees them twist elements of pop music into a sound very much their own. Mauno are an experimental pop band from Halifax in Nova Scotia, fronted by Nick Everett, a musician who we are already admire.
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