manyfingers cd review

Manyfingers - Our Worn Shadow
(Sharbon Records - 2005)

Often when I write reviews for albums / singles / gig reviews, I will usually just go with the flow with it and try my first impressions on it.

Often I will try and anaylise the production and the quality of the instruments, so even if I don't like the music itself, I can at least pass some praise on the production itself.

This however is something else altogether and in a lot actually defines catagerisation.

It is electronical music, I guess which doesn't actually use electronical music.

The music itself mostly is played by Bristol's Chris Cole, sometime associate with Matt Elliott (aka Third Eye Foundation) and Movietone, and in a way does embrace a sometime similar territory to Matt Elliott, but what does make this different is the amount of instruments that Chris plays, often starting tracks with one instrument and then looping himself and again and again to sometimes you can hear seven or eight instruments at once, which makes it sound like a small orchestra or as the title of his project, manyfingers playing at once.

This is carried to wonderful effect for example on the opening track "Same Shield" which is so over-powering it literally just stops after several minutes and it goes into a slight silence which leaves you thinking what the earth has just happened there before a reverse note starts playing from the previous notes and then starts building again and again.

Other tracks are carried just as beauitful effect with several pianos / keyboards fighting for attention on "3 Forms" which left me breathless and a computerised voice saying "Rain" on An Remark.

The album on a whole is beauitfully played and produced and well worth tracking down.

Essentail.