| MANTARAY - ALBUM | |||||||||||||
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| UK LP | Track Listing | ||||||||||||
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Cat: 174495-2 Click on cover for full scan |
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| UK CD | Track Listing | ||||||||||||
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Cat: 173995-5 Click on cover for full scan |
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| UK CD Limited Edition Deluxe Set | Track Listing | ||||||||||||
 Cat: 173995-6 Click on cover for full scan |
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| Notes: |
The deluxe edition is a
digipak. It comes in a glossy slipcase and includes a fold out
poster and three postcards.
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| Released: | (World) 10/09/07 (USA) 18/09/07 | ||||||||||||
| UK Chart: | No.39 | ||||||||||||
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| Sleeve Design: | DED Ass. | ||||||||||||
| Producer: | Steve Evans & Charlie Jones | ||||||||||||
| MANTARAY - IMPORTS/PROMOS | ||||
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| UK Promo CD | Track Listing | |||
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Cat: SIOUXSIE01 Click on cover for full scan
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| Notes: |
1 minute excerpts.
The front cover does contain a fine outline-only design of bugs, butterflies, etc. that scanning will not pick up. |
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| UK Promo CD | Track Listing | |||
Click on cover for full scan |
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| UK LP Test Pressing | Track Listing | |||
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| Notes: | 1
of 5
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| UK Promo Interview CD | Track Listing | |||
Click on cover for full scan |
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| US Import CD | Track Listing | |||
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Courtesy of Obscuri Click on cover for full scan |
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| Notes: | Available through some US stores including a free exclusive promo 7" single of 'Into A Swan'. | |||
| MANTARAY - PROMO - LINER NOTES | ||
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SIOUXSIE MAKES DEBUT SOLO ALBUM
FOR RELEASE IN SEPTEMBER
Rock history is littered with epiphanies, often involving the vision of Bowie and Mick Ronson performing Starman on Top Of The Pops, the Pistols at the 100 Club or maybe Oasis at King Tut's in Glasgow. It's a path that has led to the establishment of new aristocracy within music; an acceptance that, even in supposedly alternative culture, we are basically all the same. But for many rock malcontents this was not the case and, for us, our epiphany was the first glorious manifestation of Siouxsie Sioux, the true outsider's outsider. It is impossible now to recreate the era in which Siouxsie hatched herself into the world as a fully fledged pop star. This was a time of extreme exhibitionism and experimentation and none encapsulated the time better than Siouxsie and the Banshees. Amidst the well-rehearsed, spurious idea of chaos peddled by the majority of punk bands, Siouxsie's first ever time onstage saw her perform a truly chaotic and t2wisted version of the Lord's Prayer at the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976. The group had never played together and that lineup, featuring Sid Vicious on drums, never would again. "I don't know what it is but it isn't rock no roll" said an adversarial Pistols' Glen Matlock and those of us observing the charade that punk had already become could only cheer loudly from the sidelines. Disappearing to the suburbs to refocus, the group appeared months later with a unique vision. This was music that polarised early audiences, moving them away from the elementary rhythms of punk to a sound which drew on influences as disparate as the Velvet Underground, Can, 'Low' era Bowie and J.G. Ballard. It was a long way from anarchy in the UK. As the group toured they started to pick up a sizeable following and Siouxsie, always a star, became an antidote to what was very wrong with the music industry and its attitude towards strong women. It soon became apparent that her influence was even greater than just through her remarkable music; the Siouxsie look, a beguiling mixture of aggression, power and strange fragility, became as iconic as that of Ziggy Stardust had been six years earlier. Something was happening, and it wasn't about an accepted notion of femininity, or indeed masculinity; this was something much more empowering for a whole generation of disaffected women and men. The group's first single "Hong Kong Garden" was released in 1978 and went straight into the charts at No 7. Their debut album "The Scream" was released later that year and was hailed as one of the best debut albums of all time. What followed for an amazing 17 years was a succession of records so glorious that it is hard to imagine groups today being able to emulate their power, their sense of gleeful experimentation and their total chart success. In the end though the true legacy of the group was more than a catalogue of brilliant records and tours that none of their contemporaries could ever match. For Siouxsie herself left a much stronger impression. As she continued with The Creatures, Siouxsie experimented further with the powerful tribal rhythms she adored, matched with the power of her beguiling voice. Her expanding creativity would see this reluctant icon feted by her peers in the music and creative world throughout her whole musical career. Bearing that in mind, surprisingly little is known of the real Siouxsie Sioux, a rare situation for an artist who has been making records for almost three decades. In 1977 Siouxsie's glacial image led to a music paper christening her The Ice Queen, an epithet which she seemed to embrace, confessing that year that she employed stark blue lighting to make her look cold and hard on stage. But just as is is easy to caricature an artist with a few broad brush strokes, The Ice Queen who captured the media and public imagination was a much more complex figure than imagined. This complexity is most fully apparent on Siouxsie's debut solo album "Mantaray", which will be released in September. On this record she revels in a sense of freedom, something much more expansive than was displayed in any of her previous work. For fans who thought she might never eclipse her Banshee and Creature highlights, this will be received with the form of rapture only reserved for the iconic. For those who have only dipped into her previous work, prepare to have any preconceptions shattered. And, most thrillingly, for a whole new generation of listeners, a slew of delights and surprises lies in store on what is surely one of the albums of 2007. "Mantaray" is remarkable on many fronts, not least that all 8 tracks show an artist at the absolute peak of her powers. Musically it moves between the industrial heavy rhythms of the single "Into A Swan", through the modern glam stomp of "It's About To Happen" into the complex freeform playfulness of "Drone Zone", and the electronic, relentlessly hypnotic "Sea Of Tranquility", both of which could be the soundtrack for a David Lynch film…this is music like nothing else around right now. Lyrically too the album shows Siouxsie in a less veiled light. It might be too trite to say this is the sound of the Ice Queen melting, but the statement has some validity. For a generation whose teenage years were spent in a liberating rush of idealised alienation, something had to give long ago. And just as Siouxsie was never truly the Ice Queen, this album shows her searching for a sense of her place in the world. It's altogether a more human, humane record than she has ever made, and all the better for it – the themes of the songs might encompass disappointment, distrust and despair, but they are bound together by a warmth of spirit that would have been anathema to the Siouxsie of 1978 but which is a true picture of this iconic artist in 2007. Siouxsie MANTARAY 1. Into A Swan 2. About To Happen 3. Here Comes That Day 4. Loveless 5. If It Doesn't Kill You 6. One Mile Below 7. Drone Zone 8. Sea Of Tranquility 9. They Follow You 10. Heaven and Alchemy Produced by Steve Evans and
Charlie Jones |
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| MANTARAY - PRESS | ||
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| Mojo 09/07 | ||
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 Grand royale
Punk's first lady plays debutante with her first solo record. Victoria Segal joins the coming out party to be presented to the good, the bad and the queen. When Siouxsie And The Banshees officially called it a day in 1996, one of the reasons given for the decision to split was their horror at the swill of pink nostalgia stirred up by the Sex Pistols' unseemly reunion. Admittedly, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin and Budgie reunited briefly themselves in 2002 for the wryly named Seven Year Itch tour, but their gracious retiring of the Banshees name was the act of people refreshingly unwilling to fence themselves off as a heritage theme park, a Vegas lounge act in kohl and leather. They might have been the last of the original punk bands to secure a record deal - a glitch Sioux has previously attributed to her inability and unwillingness to play the pop "poppet" - but in every other respect, they were one step ahead. They pushed punk into its post-prefixed incarnation just as it started to congeal into a lumpen mess, lit a candle for the dark missionaries of goth and gleefully experimented with electronica as the techno-age dawned, evolving where other bands ossified. Obviously, Siouxsie always had top billing on the marquee but after the dissolution of the Banshees, she happily allowed her name to be subsumed into The Creatures, her long-standing side project with drummer and partner Budgie. Now, however, she is finally striking out on her own, releasing her solo debut after a career that has spanned four decades. Her appetite for the project was, she says, whetted by two events: her appearance on the 2003 Basement Jaxx track Cish Cash, which opened her eyes to the potential of a collaborative approach; and the 2004 Dreamshow tour, which took place under her own name and culminated in two orchestral nights at the Royal Festival Hall. Three years later, after putting out word that she was looking for musical co-conspirators and deciding to work with Bath-based producers Steve Evans and Charlie Jones, Mantaray has arrived. It would have been all too easy for Sioux to sink back into grande dame status. Clutching her reputation and back catalogue like crown and sceptre, she has earned the right to preside regally over a music scene still transfixed by the angles of her cheekbones and the edges of her voice. She has little to prove: posterity has been kind to her and the Banshees. Arcade Fire and Scissor Sisters have name-checked them. Last year LCD Soundsystem covered Slowdive from 1982's A Kiss In The Dreamhouse. Even at a time when Beth Ditto can become a media star, it's hard to deny that Sioux remains that most elusive of creatures: a woman who takes on the music industry on her own terms, and triumphs. As such, she remains an enduring, pan-generational role model. Mantaray, however, displays a passion and conviction that shows an artist unhappy to rest on her numerous laurels. On opening track Into A Swan she declares, "I'm on the verge of an awakening," feeling a "force I've never felt before." This is followed by the high-on-life glam rock of About To Happen, with its dramatic declaration: "Can't contain it/I'm fit to burst." She turned 50 this year, and the passage of time is famously cruel to performers, especially female ones. Sioux, with fabulous contrariness, sounds like she's on the brink of a whole new adventure, a lust for life and a thirst for sonic adventure radiating from each track. Even when the songs fail to match the sense of excitement, this spirited energy is good reason to warm to this record. There are times when Mantaray sounds cluttered or dated - Into A Swan could more than hold its own against the pallid boys of the industrial world, yet that would have probably been a battle best played out 10 years ago - but it powers on through sheer force of charisma. There is no reason why Here Comes That Day - the theatrical brass making you think of Any Whinehouse if her eyeliner was a reliable goth signifier - couldn't be a hit, and what a pleasure it would be to see Siouxsie back in the charts. Her voice is as flinty as ever, scoring lines across some intriguing instrumentation: Drone Zone's hive of sonic activity features session king Terry Edwards on queasy brass while Sea Of Tranquility tones down the Banshees' claustrophobic psychedelia into a more cosmic, Blakean awe - "There are more stars in the sky/Than grains of sand," she intones over undulating Latin rhythms. Excitement is not perhaps something most commonly associated with the woman once known as The Ice Queen. The cryptic lyrics which often encoded her sensitivities in poetic disgust at the world, or played off tricks of the mental light, are present, but Mantaray's prevailing tone is one of emotional openness. There are moments of surrealism, of disassociation: Into A Swan riffles the pages of Greek mythology, a testament to the power of transformation, while the pollen-sticky haze of Drone Zone sees Sioux as queen bee, looking down at a "humdrum" world, dismissing, in fine disdainful voice, the "buzzing busy bees... mesmerised in the drone zone." If you read between the lines of Here Comes That Day, she even becomes a stormy angel of vengeance, launching an attack on some hapless sap who dares to live "a life of insincerity". "Here comes the rain on your parade," she promises, thunder and lightening crackling around her. Yet tenderness, even vulnerability, also spill out from under her magnificent eyelashes. On the relentless surge of Loveless, she sounds in turmoil - "What am I gonna do/How do I face the truth?" - the dank, woody percussion that The Creatures made their own dripping and ticking over the top. If It Doesn't Kill You is an expansive torch song, pooling like smoke in spotlights, outlining the silhouette of a hand in a black stain glove, and proving that her James Bond theme song is sadly overdue. Here, you can detect a pain that cannot be avoided, a direct pain rather than one refracted through a twisted prism of imagery. Even the victories sounds hard-won: One Mile Below, with its predatory tribal drumming and Lord Of The Flies yelping, announces: "Sometimes you win when you lose." On closing track Heaven And Alchemy, Sioux sighs, "You're in love with the idea of me." Mantaray plays on this thought. It's not necessarily what people expect from Siouxsie Sioux and her persona - at times exploring a more traditional divadom than the exotically clad, Bill Grundy-baiting punk dominatrix, the formidable post-punk icon, the chill small-g-gothic beauty. Yet one thing her solo incarnation shares with all her others, is that she still stands alone. 3/5 Victoria Segal 09/07 FACT SHEET
KEY TRACKS
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