Review: Mangene ‘101 Atomic Terms And What They Mean’ EP
Little did I know that Oxbow‘s sublime Love’s Holiday album that I reviewed for The Sleeping Shaman in July last year, which also happened to also make my 2023 end of year top ten, would be their last. You can therefore imagine my shock upon hearing of their split, details of which I won’t be disclosing here.
While the San Francisco quartet may be no more, its former frontman Eugene S. Robinson has been keeping busy and not just on the musical front with projects such as Buñuel and Mangene, but also literary pursuits can be found on his Look What You Made Me Do Substack. I’m sure Robinson has countless other irons in the fire but those are the ones that currently spring to mind.
Mangene, a portmanteau of the collaborator’s first names, also features Swiss multi-instrumentalist Manuel Liebeskind who, aside from working with numerous artists over the years, also happens to run the booking agency Splatter Promotion bringing various punk, experimental and noise acts to Europe, one of whom happened to be Oxbow.
Regarding the album’s title in a recent interview, Eugene spoke about how he has had it since 1979 and has been waiting for the right opportunity to present itself before using it. Additionally, the promotional notes mention that the band are ‘the sound that stops sound’ which is a bold claim, and I’m therefore intrigued to see whether this transpires on 101 Atomic Terms And What They Mean, their debut release.
I love the electro-funk proto hip-hop of artists such as Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa and this might provide a clue as to where the sounds to be found on opener The Amber Of Heaven originate from. There’s also a Kraftwerk sparseness present too, as well as the wilful experimentation of overlooked New Yorkers Dirty Projectors. This is of course all dependent on your own interpretation but what isn’t up for debate is how damn good this is. A superb start.
what isn’t up for debate is how damn good this is…
Froth includes a combination of spoken word and intense vocals of the kind we have long become accustomed to from Eugene as a result of his former/current day jobs. All this is given a sinister, harsher musical backdrop, especially when compared to its dreamier predecessor and is akin to post-punk bands such as This Heat and PIL as well as the hard hitting glitchy EBM sounds of Front 242 and Frontline Assembly. Pretty fan-fucking-tastic.
I again reference the promotional notes where artists such as The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers are mentioned and that’s certainly apparent on Monkey Si, Monkey C which recalls the latter’s Block Rockin’ Beats as well as a wide number of other big beat outfits from the 1990s ala Apollo 440, Crystal Method etc. Remember the action sequences in films such as Spawn and The Matrix, the sounds here serve as the perfect accompaniment. Incidentally, the vocals are more engaging than those found on the aforementioned artist’s tracks, the Michael Gira stream of consciousness style especially forging some truly brilliant results.
Hey Bossa Nova, the longest track on the album at eight minutes sixteen seconds, is somewhat jazz inflected what with the scat vocalizations and this is injected with a steady diet of classic no-wave post-disco, think Konk, Liquid Liquid, ESG. An effortlessly cool conclusion to the EP.
For those mourning Oxbow‘s demise, Mangene provides a pleasant short-term solution and distraction. It’ll be interesting to see whether the duo will follow it up or whether we will have to be content with this potential one-off release.
Label: A Tree In A Field Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Reza Mills
