Monday 26 October 2009

Dan Mangan - The Indie Queens Are Waiting

Despite the fact that we are now supposedly a global community, connected by the wired up and wireless world that we live in through the internet, there are many musicians that are highly acclaimed in their own country yet are very much unknowns in other parts of the developed world. Dan Mangan is one such artist. An award winning singer songwriter in his native Canada, in the UK he is still very much off the radar for the majority. In May of this year we witnessed Mangan play at the Great Escape in Brighton to a small crowd (review here ). His beautiful humble observant songs reminded us a little of Damien Rice and Badly Drawn Boy, with a vocal gruffness that is warming like a good bottle of red wine. His performance was one of several highlights of the festival.

In November Mangan is set to return to Brighton as one of several shows he plays in the green and pleasant land including London, Bristol and Edinburgh. Since we first saw this heart-warming singer songwriter play, he has put out his second album Nice Nice Very Nice in Canada to critical and commercial success. Whilst the record is not yet available in the UK we very much hope that at some point a release opportunity will be secured. From what we can gather we understand his uplifting song Robots will be released as a single around the time of the shows. Before this however, here is the video for another one of his acoustic gems The Indie Queens Are Waiting. The tune features wonderful vocal interplay with fellow Canadian Veda Hille. Take a listen, and be smitten with it’s subtle pauses, lyrics about coffee shops, record stores and questioning “Are we cool now?” We haven’t misjudged when we say that the sublime music of Dan Mangan deserves much more exposure in the UK.

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