Manuok

Manuok (Man you okay?) is dark indie pop from San Diegan Scott Mercado, who runs in the same circles as other notable San Diego acts such as The Black Heart Procession, The Album Leaf, and the Dropscience. In fact The Black Heart Procession is probably a common and understandable comparison that gets made. While this is in that vein it's not quite as good at capturing the sustained melancholy/melodrama that BHP does so well. Not that it's trying to. There are lots of non-sad tracks here (and the ones that are aren't that weighty). There's also lots of samples, loops, and distortion making up these arrangements, and the combinations sometimes work and sometimes just seem frivolous. (The promo sticker says "notwist meets bright eyes". Can't quite put that together for myself. And where's the positive promo in that anyway?) FCC clean.

1. Brief mournful/foreboding instrumental.
2. Looped drums, squeaky acoustic guitar, dueling vocal tracks and a little bit of bossa nova feel.
3. Distorted beats into overwrought acoustic part into slow instrumental. End with
"Radiohead" computer voices.
4. Upbeat. Vox sort of fuzzy and too slow to work quite right over instruments.
**5. Various loops into piano w/ some violin. Ends abruptly.
6. 3 distinct parts; begins sort of dirgy and ends sweet and poppy.
7. Can hear wine glasses over the piano. The chorus is the highlight.
8. Some narrative story in the background. Pretty instrumental without quirks.
**9. Piano based but still beat heavy. Nice echo-y voxs with ghostly feel.
10. Floating, soft closer.