Many of you may never have heard of The Kingsbury Manx. I hadn’t, until NME reviewed their first album back in 2000 and said that, whilst they didn’t know much about them, the album was great. One very quick listen later and I’d ordered it from Amazon, and even now, “The Kingsbury Manx” gets played in L&L Mansions every month or so. They are one of those bands that have an absolutely effortless sound, as though they just need to pick up their instruments and the sound flows out. Yes, that sounds like bollocks, but you listen to them and try and explain it better. Ok, so there’s a definite early Pink Floyd psychedelia to their sound1, along with a mellow gentleness and, in their later records, a playful jauntiness. From “The Kingsbury Manx” to their most recent release, “The Fast Rise And Fall Of The South”, their sound loses some of its opacity, replaced by warmth and openness.
Anyhow, they’ve got a new album out next month called “Ascenseur Ouvert!”, on the Odessa Records label, and you can listen to two tracks from their Myspace page here. Whilst I dug around for about five minutes for some MP3’s, I couldn’t find anything off the new album, so I shall cease and desist until something does come along. But here’s some YouTube footage thanks to The Delete Bin. I love Technorati, it does have its moments (oh, and if you love it too, do me a favour and fave me. Go on, just for a giggle).
Oh, and here’s an MP3 of one of the best tracks from what I’d personally say was their best album, 2003’s “Aztec Discipline”. Called “Grape To Grain”, I have no idea what it’s on about.
You can pre-order the album from here.
Stunning album art too, as always, from the marvellous Fatheart Galleries (no, I don’t think I’ve got that right either. Any ideas?).
Isn't This Lovely?
Oh, and one little thing – if any of the band read this, you’re great, but your website doesn’t work very well with either Firefox 3 or IE 7. Sorry.
1 Which the band acknowledge as coincidental; they only heard early Pink Floyd after they’d recorded “The Kingsbury Manx”.
Loft And Lost 
Rob
/ March 23, 2009Thanks for the linkage to the Delete Bin – appreciated!
I was trying to find some live footage of this band where the crowd wasn’t yammering amongst themselves as the band played. But, I had to settle. The song they’re playing in that clip is my favourite track off of their album Let You Down called “Porchlight”.
Thanks again for the link-love.
Cheers,
Rob
the Delete Bin
loftandlost
/ March 23, 2009No worries! Good to see other people talking about The Kingsbury Manx, I think they are one of today’s great lost bands. It’s telling that all the live footage seems to be of them as support acts that people talk through. Sad, but hopefully the new album will get them noticed.
clarque blomquist
/ April 12, 2009Hey! Thanks for the kind words. We’ve been pretty inactive these last few years but we’re going to ramp things up a bit once the new album is out, play a lot more show the rest of this year, start work on Manx VI, partly written already. We’ll be playing in Richmond, DC, Baltimore, and NYC in May. The specifics will be on our site and the myspace.
In September Odessa Records will be releasing an album by Ryan’s other band Inspector 22 (who are rad) and the CD version of me and my wife’s band WAUMISS album, which we put out on ourselves last year as wax/downloads. The CD will include remixes by Mike Jorgensen (Pronto, Wilco), Ajay Saggar (Bent Moustache), PFFR (Birdman Records, recording artists, creators of Wonder Showzen and Xavier Renegade Angel), and Eric Morrison (Home, Screw Music Forever collective founding father).
Here’s our site :
http://www.littleramonarecords.com
Bill also has a solo record in the works that is amazing, it’ll suprise people. It’s electronic dance music sort of like Pet Shop Boys or Erasure. but with Bill’s distinct voice and delivery.
Didn’t see that one coming did ya? I sure didn’t.
All of the K.Manx album covers are painted by Scott Myers, the Manx’s original keyboardist and long time buddy. Fat Heart Galleries is his site.
Thanks!
– clarque b. / The Kingsbury Manx / WAUMISS