Man Man
Six Demon Bag

THE REVIEW

PHILADELPHIA and the PIRATES

Rum, boiling water, lemon juice, whiskey, and sugar, is the recipe for the GROG, the famous gut-buster, as well as a panacea for the most diverse ailments, used by pirates, who aboard their ships celebrated victories and loot or moments of absolute boredom and loneliness.
The atmosphere is exactly this, a party, alcoholic revelry, and melancholy from lack of love, but also fury and energy, chaos and phobias. There is a strange passion that winds through the United States, the traditional music of Eastern Europe, Klezmer and Polka, atmospheres dear to Emir Kusturica’s films emerge dreamy and sharp, blending with punk and country bordering on hardcore folk.

The independent music scene in Philadelphia is more alive than ever, Espers, Spinto band, Fursaxa, and Bardo pond, but Man Man on their second album are a case apart, like Beirut and Gogol Bordello they seem enchanted by Europe and a theatrical and gypsy music, a journey from Beefheart to Zappa up to the most recent and scattered Coral, where unpredictability and surrealism ignite the fire that illuminates a modern and innovative cabaret.

Man Man are six, and they sing in six, the result is always pleasant and emotional, tribal drums reminiscent of New Orleans funeral processions mesh with marimbas and organs supported by saloon pianos, saxophones and horns followed by various falsettos.
"Feathers" opens with piano and voices resonating inside an inn, an European afternoon, "Engwish Bwudd" falsetto and voices, an anthem to adventure, picaresque and guttural, "Banana Ghost" is the ghost of the banana, it could be the soundtrack of a Tim Burton movie, acoustic guitar and even a hint of jazzy solo, "Young Einstein on the beach", punk has always existed and never died, "Skin tension", snow falls and Tom Waits joins the chorus, violin and organette accompany the piano on the street corner, "Black mission goggles", again falsetto and acid choirs, frenetic rhythm interrupted by a shot, an explosion of percussion, "Hot bat" is the madness of man, short and sudden, "Push the eagle's stomach", saxophone and hard voices bring us back to rock, at the center of the battle in a collective suicide, "Van Helsing Boombox" is a real song, honky-tonk piano and banjo join one of the best lyrics of the album, Europe steps aside and the American soul emerges, "Tunneling through the guy", again extreme and talented cabaret anticipating the closure of "Ice dogs", freak and suggestive, a greeting, a farewell, the music fades, the curtain closes leaving an uncontrollable desire, to relive the adventure, the journey, the dream.

"I woke up asleep, sweaty, stuck to the leather seat. The sun had already begun to warm the car from behind the dirty glass. My eyes were burning, smeared with tiredness and sleep. But I realized that in the end I had gone away. The plain, the heat, it was all left behind. I looked for safety at the front seat, and found none of the usual ones, and outside nothing but the morning." (Vinicio Capossela)

"Six Demon Bag" is a cauldron in which everything boils... Wildly and wonderfully recommended.