Artist: Manu Louis
Title: Coltan Major Harmonics
Keywords: electronic Belgium
After bringing us his delicious cream in audio form, the busy traveling Belgium artist named Manu Louis had been touring the world without ever having a day off to stand still. Seriously, Manu had been (and still is!) so busy that if he would have been hit by the common cold he would have had no time to even blow the snot out of his nose. Always on the move from one place into the other, you could have locked his ankles with a chain as seen on the artwork as seen above, but this man would still keep on moving! He is simply unstoppable!
Everywhere he goes the chairs will have ultimate no real choice than being folded up in order to create some space for his and the movement of others, as the four by four fun music simply deserves to be danced upon! crazily enough it is also attracting quite a crowd of semi intellectuals that dedicate their lives to frowning away as they stroke their chins in pure wonder…
Luckily for them they can do the chin stroking now at their own comfortable homes while playing this brand new seven inch record that Manu Louis had dropped upon us so recently. These tracks are also featured in an interactive Installation by Escif at MIMA Brussels: so there is plenty of food for the chin strokers. . I’m sure if they could stop stroking and mumbling for just a tiny bit, they would have plenty of time to order this release and get it into their private listening rooms as soon as possible. I’m sure that they will be delighted by the whole thing as even though this time Manu Louis might not have been squirting his cream all over it, he did provide a nice arsenal of pleasantries on this pretty looking audio format. It is the sound and style of Manu Louis all over again – a guaranteed success with two tracks ready to plop out of your speakers! Headphones might be an option too!
It is filled with lush synth sounds, wonderful stereo mixtures, fat bass and kicks that are all placed at the best possible places. On side A Manu Louis and Heidi Heidelberg dare to drop some wiggle worthy sensual sexiness in vocal form, an action that feels like a young daddy versus youngster relationship with a seriously groovy undertone. Add some fantastic upbeat rhythm and a certain coolness to the mix and you will know that it will be another one of those releases that will make your shoulders go up and down among the delicately positive approval ratings.
There is even a electric guitar to add to the sauciness of it all; who could sit still? The chin strokers perhaps? Manu Louis gives plenty of music reasons to go and do some dancing on, but to be fair, with these two tunes squeezed onto this piece of vinyl, there is actually enough to indeed go and stroke your chin in wonder for. Maybe chin stroking could be considered dancing too; we just got to keep an open mind and alter the perspectives of reality sometimes…
Just like my teacher at the graphic school said; “never explain your art” in order for others to boggle their own minds with opinions; In this case I feel it’s also my term to boggle my head over here & do some chin stroking myself…luckily I got a good chin and my hands haven’t been blown off from the upcoming fireworks, so for now it’s all possible! The chin stroking has not so much to do with the music itself (as its deliciously groovy and easily enjoyable), but more with facing up the fact to precisely figure out what it is that Manu Louis and his London friend Heidi Heidelberg are singing about, not that they aren’t understandable but just lyric wise it is not all that clear to me. It could be interpreted in so many ways.
It does sound like a hot topic, something that perhaps had boggled their own minds as well while creating it, it made me gurgle up the word ‘Coltan’ in the search engine, which threw me deeply into a untrustworthy page over at the Wikipedia emporium :
“Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites and known industrially as tantalite) is a dull black metallic ore from which are extracted the elements niobium and tantalum. The niobium-dominant mineral in coltan is columbite (after niobium’s original American name columbium), and the tantalum-dominant mineral is tantalite. Tantalum from coltan is used to manufacture tantalum capacitors which are used for portable telephones, personal computers, automotive electronics, and cameras. Coltan mining has financed serious conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the Ituri conflict and the Second Congo War.”
…heavy stuff! There goes my lightweight sensual daddy – youngster theory out of the window; maybe the sung ‘giving it to daddy’ simply means passing on the mine’s dull black metallic ores, trying to stop some conflicting war…
how noble!
The second track also gives plenty of room to think and try to look intelligently at, a thing that you could also skip as dancing here would be a much better thing to go for. But yeah, because the words of Manu companying the electronic energy are in French it could mean that you have to dance and stroke your chin at the same time. Unless of course if your France language skills had been so much in the pocket that you simply had no reason for stroking & could simply go up and down in a dancing frenzy that is common body language to most of us.
My first personal thought was that I wished to have payed a bit more attention to my France language teacher back in the days, perhaps maybe an equal amount as I had given towards the graphic school teacher. Or at least enough to know abit more what Manu Louis had been singing about over here. I can hear ‘merde’ which I believe means shit, so at least I had something to be proud off!
But yeah all in all the pretty electric glitchy bits and bulbs that easily transformed themselves into a irresistible funkiness, something that invoked an energetic contagious electro dance track is acceptably nice enough to wiggle my ignorant ass back to school, apologise to my France teacher and beg for a semi-young versus daddy session of a privately given hardcore French language lesson! Who knows, maybe my teacher and me would find common ground, bury our differences, burn our feud from the past and dance intimately and actively around the classroom! Manu Louis got the right music for it, so who knows! So wether you like to stroke your chin or dance (or both!) a copy of this release is waiting for you over here… it’s guaranteed not ‘merde’ at all!
https://manulouis.bandcamp.com/album/coltan-major-harmonics
<KN>
Yeah I Know It Sucks 