Dan Mangan is a man questioning the very fact of his existence and his faith is wavering. A young singer/songwriter, who latest album Nice, Nice, Very Nice will be released in August, Mangan has the penmanship of the Weakerthans with the spirituality of Arcade Fire. The album named in tribute to Kurt Vonnegut is a dark, dark, very dark record, to the point where one worries for the safety of the writer.
Mangan's angst is writ large here... he sings of the need for love in all things, the crie de couer in the wilderness which goes unheeded, the inability to penetrate the corpulant cage which hinders us all, the inevitable appointment we must all keep.... time and date unknown.
While surrounded by collaborators like John Critchley, Justin Rutledge, Veda Hille, Mark Berube and members of Elliott Brood, Said The Whale, Mother Mother, Major Maker and Durham Region's Small Sins, Mangan still feels and expresses an intense loneliness, not just minor chord sadness, but a real tangible sense of man's fate (and woman's).
Mangan eyes the Sisyphean task before him and reconsiders. "Flirt with being satisfied" is the advice offered him yet I don't get the sense that settling is sufficient for this artist.
The lyrics of Vonnegut's poem include...
"Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine
Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device"
But I think Arthur Lipsett's 1961 film Very Nice, Very Nice could also be source material for the sentiments expressed in Mangan's songs.
Photo by: Jonathan Taggart
http://www.jonathantaggart.com
Posted by: c | August 30, 2009 at 07:10 PM