Le Mans

It’s almost a platitude to say that LE MANS are the Spanish independent band most reknown internationally, due both to their unquestionable personality and their present day conception of music. Unlike others, LE MANS don’t try to hide their likes nor their influences, but they air them proudly, knowing how they’ve taken the best of each to consolidate their singular position in the international scene. If not, what’s the link then betw…

It’s almost a platitude to say that LE MANS are the Spanish independent band most reknown internationally, due both to their unquestionable personality and their present day conception of music. Unlike others, LE MANS don’t try to hide their likes nor their influences, but they air them proudly, knowing how they’ve taken the best of each to consolidate their singular position in the international scene. If not, what’s the link then between VAINICA DOBLE and LA FUNK MOB?

“Jonathan Jeremiah”, the instrumental song that titles this record, served in the first place as a score for the modern dance film “Jone Manak”, and offers us again, with disarming naturalness, their infallible recipe: dance music and jazzy listening,manufactured with taste and quality. They combine perfectly the austere and autumnal atmosphere of “Saudade” with the danceable and charming rhythm of “Zerbina”, and they prove how they control not only intimist pop, interlacing their Spanish guitar arrangements with rhythms and vocal samplings which remind of the best trip-hop of Mo’Wax or Ninja Tune.

“Ama Hil Zaigu”, on the other hand, is the first song that LE MANS sing in euskera (their mother language), and they do it with a cover version of Basque folk-singer Mikel Laboa, masterly conducted by Jone’s warm vocals. Beautiful, tragic folk music, played with respect, and with some winks to Nick Cave’s sensational arrangements.

The song which closes the record is a remix of “Lucien” (song taken from “Saudade”), which in the beginning had to be done by DJ Pez, and ended up being done by INSTRÜMENTAL (band formed by Pez himself and Ibon from LE MANS, with a maxi-single released by Novophonic), coming to prove how they are able to find new ways of expression to songs of their own which seemed to remain untouchable. In this case, the unmistakable guitar arrangement of “Lucien” it’s adorned with latin congas and a simple but expressive melodica, which give a new life, different but equally bewitching, to the precious song from “Saudade”.