Man Man: Rabbit Habits

Somewhere along the line, someone in Philadelphia’s Man Man must’ve accidentally spun Swordfish Trombones at 45 RPM and gotten hooked on the sound. For the uninitiated, imagine if you will a mix of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart pureed in a blender, filtered through punk sensibility, served up on a platter of childlike wonder with unbridled exuberance and recorded in bayou juke-joint in the forties. That’s Man Man for you.

Remarkably, these five guys from Philly seem to have found some esoteric formula for playing avant-garde inspired music in a relatively accessible manner. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my seven-year-old daughter, who’s just crazy about “The Ballad of Butter Beans” (track three on their third album, Rabbit Habits, due to be released on April 8). I just hope she doesn’t ask what the lyric “lipstick ‘cross your dillsnick” means.

The one impression I keep coming away with when I listen to this record is that these guys must be having the time of their lives playing these tunes. In a world where it seems as if every band on the radio is trying to drag you down into the quagmire of their clinical depression, it’s good to know there’s at least one band out there that seems to be having a fun, even if they are a certifiable bunch of weirdoes.

The energy is absolutely frenetic throughout most of this new record, and even when they slow it down for quieter piano-based tunes like “Doo Right” or the happy-go-lucky title track there’s still this gritty underbelly to everything that grabs my full attention. This can, however, be distracting at the same time: it took me about three or four listens before I realized that underneath all the craziness, all the bizarre, constantly changing instrumentation and the fragile voice of Honus Honus there was also some pretty accomplished songwriting going on. But don’t tell anyone - I think it’s supposed to be a closely guarded secret.

Continued on page 2 - Photo courtesy of Anti- Records

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