Michael Mayer: Mantasy - A Belated Reflection

Music

It may have come out a little whle back, but at R$N we like to take our time over these things – think of it like the review equivilant of a fine wine – give it a chance to settle and it's all the better for it, or something….Anyways, onwards… Initially when it dropped in our inbox all that time back we fell head over heels in love with it… and just banged on about it… and then forgot to review it! Then claimed we'd run out of time… until Mr Todd stepped and sorted us out…

Here are his words:

As a co-owner of Germany’s Kompakt, one of the most progressive techno labels around, a solo album from one of its bosses is expected to mirror the schizophrenic musical output whilst reaching the same level of high quality. Mayer’s second artist album and first in eight years comes across as a footnote on a specific chapter for the label and the beginning of the next.

Unfortunately the mash up of Patrick Cowley, Giorgio Moroder and Gino soccio post italo disco that the title hints at doesn’t emerge, what does however is an album of considerable scope, a musical direction with no limit.

The dramatic beatless opener ‘Sully’ re-uses 80s synths to remake b-movie horror soundtracks leading into ‘Lamusetwa’ a lush concoction of dreamy strings and theramin over the top of early 90s trip hop beats and knowingly cheeky keyboard lines. The album however is at its strongest when concentration is applied to the dance floor friendly material, the title track uses analogue synths and pumped up 4/4’s to come up with a modern day John Carpenter track, ‘Roses’ nods to the post-wobble jitter of artists such as SBTRK and the final track ‘Good Time’ featuring the vocals of Jeppe Kjellberg from Scandinavian three piece fits into the gap LCD Soundsystem left rather nicely.

‘Mantasy’ seems so effortless that it’s easy to overlook Mayer’s eight year gap in releasing material, just as well as this is the kind of album that sprouts whole new genres are, a real game changer.

9/10

Chris Todd