ALBUM REVIEW: White Manna – Live Transmissions
Courtesy of Ilia Rogatchevski
★★★1/2☆
Every band name has a story. Some are benign. Blink-182, for example, added a random number on the end of their name to avoid a legal action, or Pixies, for that matter, who couldn’t even be bothered to think and picked a word casually from a dictionary (their chosen handle, however, is deceptively jejune). Others are shrouded in mystery and obscure references. By rule, the more elusive a band name is, the more enticing the said band becomes in the eyes of the uninitiated. Utter bollocks, of course, but that is how the fanboy mind works. One could assume that Californian sonic astronauts, White Manna, derived their name from a fast food joint, but being a psychedelic outfit my guess would be that their name alludes to the novel conjecture, that the children of Israel subsisted on magic mushrooms when wandering around in the desert for forty years. Food derived from heaven, which bestows onto you powerful visions of God almighty and everything beyond? White Manna, tell me more.
Live Frequencies starts us on the journey like a slow bear waking. ‘E Shra’ is a frozen trapeze artist, poised on a pyramid of explosives inside a boiling summer circus. Searchlights bend the centre fuse. Beads of sweat collect in fissures on the face of a middle-aged mime. In expectation of flaming carnage, a boy with Bambi eyes and a technicolor helicopter hat neglects to swallow his pink-cloud sugar treat. Hookworms dance beneath the scaling wooden seats like excited shamen. Then, the fuse ignites and the canvas tent with mustard stripes mutates into a flaming ball of spite. ‘Acid Head’ carries the havoc forward. L.A. Woman-era Jim Morrison pierces through layers of coloured cellophane, while the broken carousel bass line intones furiously.
The fast-paced rock & roll caramel prevalent on ‘Evil’ summons The Stooges at their maniacal best. There is no claim to breaking new ground here. As you would expect, it’s all tattoos and motorcycle love-ins, but this 100mph phantom ride into a brick wall is as exciting as it gets and certainly worth the admission fee. The weakest track is probably ‘I’m Coming Home’, which attempts to evoke a similar vibe to Peter Gabriel’s ‘Intruder’, yet falls short of creatively administering dramatic tension.
Live Frequencies picks for its repertoire two of the most successful sound desk recordings from the band’s 2013 European tour. Clocking in at around 79 minutes, the album is perhaps a little long. The most potent criticism to be made is that the track listing is not diverse enough. Having said that, however, White Manna’s competency rests on their ability to jam out the same tune in two completely different ways. New discoveries will be made if one endeavours to listen to the whole thing.
Mind expansive music is an attempt by those who have experienced alternative states of consciousness to communicate their psychic explorations without relying solely on linguistics. Languages based on semantics often distort ideas of a cosmic nature. Think back to any conversation you may have had about space-time, religion and the existence of God and how quickly that debate became obtuse. Like time-travelling shoe salesmen in close proximity to unearthing universal truths, White Manna show you something else. There is no need for verbal acrobatics. Our sense of time and space is narrow, linear, but we are all part of the same fabric. It makes no sense to pull at the seams. It would serve us better to explore other dimensions, together. White Manna’s strength lies in communicating these and other ideas through the medium of sound. This rare talent should not be overlooked.
White Manna are currently on tour and Live Frequencies is set for release on 29 September via Cardinal Fuzz and Captcha Records.
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