Tetchy "All In My Head"
Barbara Manning "Charm of Yesterday… Convenience of Tomorrow"
“Her best work outshines those of her bigger-selling peers. Manning’s artistic restlessness and her tendency to jump in and out of bands and recording situations makes it difficult to follow her career — her discography must be one of the most confusing in all of the ’90s indie scene — but it also makes her one of the most vital and interesting singer/songwriters of her era.” – Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
Maybe everything has been going to such shit lately because Barbara Manning has been hibernating. A Matador Records mainstay and pivotal indie-rock pioneer of the nineties, Manning has continually written material that matches the quality of the many songs she covers. Both as a performer and a listener, Barbara Manning is a passionate lifer. While her music is compact and succinct, it is steeped in multitudes of genre periods and styles. From SF Seals to her work with Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants) to The Go-Luckys, every collaboration carries her genius melodies and lyricism. In a four minute catchy song, Manning can communicate what others require novels to express. Her fans include Yo La Tengo, The Clean, Sonic Youth, Tall Dwarfs, Pavement, Calexico, The Replacements, and even Faust (don’t forget her prolific work as half of free-sound stalwarts Glands of External Secretion.)
With an upcoming tour joining Codeine, Manning felt the time was right for something new. Thus, Charm of Yesterday…Convenience of Tomorrow. It compiles a few different periods. Chico Daze is a song cycle that absorbed the dark times and experiences she had in Northern California through the 2010s. The Porch Series cover songs were Manning’s antidote to pandemic madness, and features the music by Elliott Smith, Edgar Winter, Richard & Linda Thompson, Galaxie 500, Bob Dylan and The Handsome Family.
Now situated near Los Angeles, where she works as a drama teacher, Manning has been playing live again and recording, channeling her innate sense of theatricality and dynamics into this new musical era. Charm of Yesterday…Convenience of Tomorrow heralds a new phase of releases for an iconic, legendary artist set to reintroduce herself and show how beautiful songwriting flames eternal.
Mutant TG "Throbbing Gristle"
From Mute Records:
In many respects Throbbing Gristle as artists, self-promoters, marketeers, label owners and music makers broke the mould on every level and decentralised the whole music making process into their own hands. It therefore came as no surprise when some of the most notable figures in electronic dance music jumped at the chance to re-work some classic TG catalogue. The record was originally released on Mute’s sub-label NovaMute in 2004, and saw reworks from DJ and producer Carl Craig, electronic duo Two Lone Swordsmen (Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood), Basement Jaxx’s Simon Ratcliffe, electronic post-industrial duo Motor (Mr Nô and Bryan Black), as well as TG’s very own Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti.
Formed in 1975 from the ashes of performance art troupe/media guerrilla cell Coum Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle consisted of Genesis P-Orridge (1950 – 2020), Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter and Peter Christopherson (1955 – 2010). During their most active period of 1975 – 1981, TG fully delivered on punk’s failed promise to explore extreme culture as a way of sabotaging systems of control, releasing seminal records such as The Second Annual Report Of Throbbing Gristle (1977), D.O.A The Third And Final Report Of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) and more. After years of pursuing different projects, the band reformed in 2004, performing several concerts and releasing projects such as TG Now (2004), Mutant TG and Part Two: The Endless Not (2007) before disbanding for good in 2010.
