Mark Fell: Manitutshu (Editions Mego)

Mark Fell has been prolific lately. Stepping out of his role as one half of snd, he’s released a variety of solo efforts, none of which would be called conventional or easy listening. Manitutshu is an extension of his last work for Mego, UL8, a strange sputtering organism. This collection of tracks is essentially a demonstration of all of the pattern-generating development Fell did for UL8 applied to presets Fell created for Errorsmith’s Native Instruments softsynth, complete with French voice intros to each variation of sounds used. An announcement kicks it off and then it bounces and ricochets until the idea or sound has played itself out to Fell’s content. If this sounds inaccessible, it is somewhat, but not so much as one might expect. “Manitutshu (A New Algorithm)…” is quite infectious in its erratic rhythm and buoyance. I’m not doing a particularly good job at explaining what it sounds like, because it’s something (like most music) that really ought to be heard and not read about. Fans of Fell’s other solo material or his more staid work with snd will probably feel right at home with this one. His snd partner in crime Mat Steel turns up for a weird remix at the end that’s compelling in its own right…

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mark fell – manitutshu (album preview) by experimedia