Man Rei is a project of cinematic songs where the film might just as well be a soundtracked dream. The fragmented lyrics are accompanied by mangled voices, smeared samples and hazy guitar loops, dissolving in and out of foggy walls of sound. Man Rei’s music has been released on several cassette tapes including ‘Health’ (Somewhere Between Tapes, 2023) and ‘Cusp’ (Crash Symbols, 2020). Their forthcoming album is due on Somewhere Press in 2024.
Although there’s a shimmer through their music that joins the dots between Grouper and the Cocteau Twins, they balance oneiric drift with pristine clarity. ‘I Don’t Want The Money’ layers voice into a choral levitation, before the glimmer peels away into the sparsely plucked guitar notes of ‘Mangeler’. Through it all, their lyrics paint vivid snapshots from ambiguous settings. While these ruminations are doused in melancholy, their compositions find tenderness in heavy questions and fragile mental states – Daryl Worthington, The Quietus.
Man Rei, live at The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 2023, photograph by Lizzie Urquhart