by kitaj on Tue Aug 30, 2022 7:24 am
Like I’m sure many of you here, I have both albums on LP (the limited editions from the first time around) and, to be fair, they sound way better on CD to me. (Been thinking about selling them actually, from time to time...)
I think it doesn't make much sense stretching Manafon on 2LPs with that one bonus track that was soon to feature on Died in the Wool anyway.
But, even if there's not much in these reissues for me, the event has made me reappraise Manafon, which I'd always had a hard time with. It's a quality album no doubt - I couldn't possibly say it was "bad"; I just couldn't abide the sameness of his detached singing throughout, the wordiness (on that front, it seems like a Dylan record at times - well, or a late Scott Walker one), the voice steadily mixed that upfront... but most of all, the bleakness of it all. But FFWD 10 years, having experienced a lot of that bleakness first hand now... I think it's equally great as all of his best work. Do I think it could have been better? Yes: with a bit (make that a lot) more variation in the singing style, and if he'd shut up a bit and let the musicians "sing" more often (OK, he kind of does that in the 2nd half and near the end, to be fair - he always did have a great ear for structuring an album)... But I remember reading some interviews freshly upon release, and he did say that his very intention was to make the listener feel the alienation of the narrator in his vocal: well, what can I say? Mission accomplished for sure.
I've created my own redux version playlist of Manafon, bettering it in my own humble ear-view, by adding and incorporating the two extant tracks from the sessions into the tracklist as follows: "Sleepwalkers" as track 4 (between "Random Acts" and "The Greatest Living Englishman"), and "Anomaly at Taw Head" (from Died in the Wool) as track 8 (between "Snow White" and "Emily Dickinson"). I've then also substituted "Five Lines" (from the Sleepwalkers compilation) for the aforementioned "Anomaly at Taw Head" into the Died in the Wool tracklist. Happy bunny! (well, as happy as this music allows.)