Bo Manning’s solo debut North Star Runaway feels like a song for North America

After six band albums Esters-Supervisor Go Menning For the first time he released music under his own name. There are ten songs on the North Star Runaway, all written, composed, recorded and mixed by him.

Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Poe Manning is very popular with the Eutract rock band. Esters, Whose music has a special dividing line between 90s emo, post-rock and alt-country in recent years. It is noteworthy how closely the music of the North American band sounded. This is not a coincidence, but the strong influence of Mening’s music guide and friend Canadian. Bob Lanois. The brother of the famous Daniel Lanois is a talented sound engineer, producer and designer of studio equipment. In 2014, Astrid recorded the album No Map or Address with him, and due to the close friendship that developed they came to Canada twice a year to perform. To Lanois Menning, “Record everything you see in your area: a bad cell phone, an almost broken laptop or an outdated 4-track cassette recorder. Until you record it! ”Between 2009 and 2021, he did it with the mindset that his solo debut was going to be a folk album.

Dedicated to the recently deceased Lanois, it did not end up being a folk folk album. But it also has a small urban feel dominated by radio samples, ambient sounds and interview bits that can come from nowhere other than North America: the dilapidated vacuum of inevitable grief, loss and emotional claustrophobia. At the same time, the intimate sounds of voices, synthesizers and drum computers feel like a warm blanket of 80s nostalgic cinematic soundtracks – the comfort zone. It is precisely this conflict between dark emotions and warm blankets that gives the album its complexity.

If you zoom in on the music, you can see a cropback style between different tracks. The slender 80s synth pop of ‘Let’s Go to Hell’ creates a beautiful but sometimes restless atmosphere on the closing track of ‘Up in the Motor Hills’ and ‘Farewells on the Outskirts’. ‘Lanark Lands’ synths and guitar meninges voice provide the beautiful showcase color that is suddenly buried under the music. The most sketchy guitar ballads sound very low-fi and green, but these are songs that are more roomy to experiment with. The introduction to one of those ballads – ‘Factoria’ – is also dominated by a loud guitar drone. The result may not feel like an album, but the big thing is it does. Atmosphere is a ‘concept album’, Mening’s weak and dreamy voice, the nostalgia of the 80s and the presence of North America. Always the ghost of his friend Bob Lanois!