A new project led by Guy Manning is always worthy of our attention. In my opinion, he is one of the most important intelligent music artists to emerge from Britain after the mad rush of the initial art/progressive rock period of the 1970’s, living proof that such creative joy did not end with the stereotypical Year Zero of punk rock.
Manning’s discography is large. This website last wrote about him with the supreme Damanek release, Making Shore, last year, and Guy also kindly provided us with a very detailed interview. You can view both by clicking on the links at the bottom of this page.
So, looking at this 2024 project, Manning has made it clear that it is only by selling enough of each release can the funding enable future tracks to be released. For sure, this places a kind of pressure on the consumer, but in all honesty, those of us who appreciate art must hammer home the simple message that creating wonderful music does not come out of thin air – it takes passion, hard work, and, above all, financial outlay, and if that is not recouped, then it tends to have serious repercussions. On the basis that the Great British Music Public answer his call in a positive fashion, this review page is entitled with the album as a whole, as opposed to merely the single, and will be updated on each new release accordingly – a nice journey to look forward to, for sure.
The track is, therefore, available to listen to and purchase on Bandcamp (despite recent stories, still the most artist friendly outlet there is at the moment aside from artist direct) at https://guymanning.bandcamp.com/album/stitched-up
Guy has assembled a nice group of artists here. His Damanek colleague, the extremely talented Marek Arnold on sax. Simon Nicholls on acoustic and electric guitar, John Axon also on electric guitar, John Southerden on drums; assisting him on vocals, Simon Godfrey, Joe Cairney, Huw Lloyd-Jones, Phideaux Xavier, Ariel Farber, Julie King, and Kevin Currie. Of course, some of these names will be intimately familiar to you. Manning himself plays keyboards, samples, bass, mandolin, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, and, naturally, vocals. I might add that his percussive work is a very strong feature of this piece.
So, over seven minutes of new music, and the first track from Stitched Up is The Baobab Tree. Does it hold the promise of enticing riches from future iterations of this phase of Manning’s career?
In some beliefs, the Baobab Tree is regarded as bringing symbols of strength, and wisdom enabling us to join with all living things.
There are some very nice keys to introduce this amongst a pulsing rhythm section. As the main section begins, there is a crazy funk feel, a delicious sound of voices and African infused grooves, amongst this a great, if understated, guitar riff. It reminds the listener, in a very positive way, of the type of groundbreaking work Paul Simon produced with Graceland, and Manning surely had this as an influence. Amidst the chaos The Creator makes, the eponymous tree is an oasis of calm, and the gorgeous sax Arnold produces alongside some really pretty keys epitomises this before some riffs expand the track alongside the rushing parps in a great noise.
When Manning sings of the tree that.
“A few short hours to free up the soul to pass along life
Open up in the blink of an eye
By tomorrow, flower's fade
‘But I have stood here for a thousand years
Watching all things start to wane”
I think this can be interpreted also as the artist making his pitch, as it were, for us to stand alongside him and enable him to continue to refuse to let the flower of creativity fade.
The closing section is wonderfully groovy and full of life, the drums and percussion especially filling the senses.
As a taster for a new work, The Baobab Tree more than fulfils its purpose. It makes you want more.