Manik Myk Thompson - Manik Digressions (USA 1991-1995)

WOW!!!

It's recordings like this, why I love running this blog and why I think it's worth it after all, worth all the work I put into it and time I spend on it... Because – this is what it's all about: HOMEMADE LO-FI PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC!!!

Where else would one have the opportunity to find little psych jewels like "Manik Digressions" by MANIK MYK THOMPSON, if not on HLFP, that is: unless you are so lucky to know that guy personally – as BRIAN ANDREW MAREK does, who compiled this brilliant song collection.

Here is a very talented guy, who just explodes with anarchic creativity and does exactly what he wants to do, records exactly the weirdness, the voices, the guitar storms and tape manupilations and whatever else – the way he likes it – lo-fi and rough and simply great...

I really love that stuff! Strongly recommended to every serious psych head!

"I heard "Manik" Myk Thompson before I met him. An ex-girlfriend of mine had a brief relationship with him shortly after ours, and it was through her that I got a copy of his 1994 cassette "Beyond Dysfunctional". His works were intriguing enough to overcome my natural aversion to an ex's new boyfriend, and I soon drafted him into my latest project, initiating an occasional working relationship and a friendship that continues to this day.

Myk also started to make me jealous in a way that has nothing to do with girls. Like me, he was making strange, funny, smart home four-track creations, but unlike me (and like another influential friend, Andrew "File 13/Full Dimensional" Aldrich), he had the drive and vision to compile entire cassettes of this material, package them and give them out to people. I just sat and hoarded mine, too unsatisfied and self-conscious to share, waiting for some undetermined day in the future when I could professionally record and release my music. For several years in the nineties, Thompson was releasing a new 60 minute album every year, and it is from these that this compilation derives.

While Myk is best known in the open mic night circle that he still haunts for laugh-out-loud folk songs of the political and observational stripe, I have intentionally eschewed this material in favor of his more esoteric efforts. Tape manipulation, samples, skewed poetry, cosmic humor and his always outrageous guitars come together to produce a sound world that is uniquely "Manik". There's even a few bona fide (if slightly left of center) songs.

Myk asked me to compile this, and I'm glad he did - it gave me the opportunity to pay tribute to the lesser known side of a talented friend. So sit back, relax and enjoy nearly eighty minutes of Mykadelia!"

(Brian Andrew Marek, who compiled this great song collection - Thanks a lot, BaM!!!)

Favourite tracks: there are many, but probably most of all: 'She's My Favorite Color', 'Crossroads', 'City', 'I Want You', 'Room 222', 'Pleasantly Confused' ...

Enjoy!

Manik Myk Thompson - Manik Digressions

(1991-1995)

(mp3-zip, 33 tracks, 79:53 min, 184,1 MB, artwork incl.)

Get it here! New Link 01-2022

 

And don't forget to check out RIDING THE RIFF's EP

'Primordial Soup Kitchen', Manik Myk's latest

psychedelic project with Jim McKinney (here)!