--Ada Wofford
----Released 20 November 2020
Mandersonian is a spooky little solo project out of South Philly. The brainchild of Mina Santiago, Mandersonian is classically inspired bedroom-pop. But while there are moments of pop sentiment throughout, the compositions do not possess the typical verse-chorus-verse indicative of pop music. Instead, this short EP moves in sweeping brush strokes across a variety of atmospheres and moods.
Cone consists of only three tracks but contains multitudes. The elaborate titles of the tracks informs the listener of the grandiose vision this EP holds, despite clocking in at under ten minutes: 1) "I: Rickenbackardo's Fall from Grace and Subsequent Belgian Exile," 2) "Interim," 3) "II: The Lady Spelled Asleep by the King of Birds." This reads more like something out of a playbill for a two-act play rather than the track list of an EP and for good reason—Cone is not merely an album you listen to, it's a journey you embark upon.
The album has a stripped down, hollow, even cavernous sound to it. The tracks are primarily directed by a ghostly piano, which plunks and plinks behind a voice that dips and weaves about the mix in ways both sporadic and beautiful. There's real drama and movement within the vocal performance and the eerie atmosphere created by the somber piano and moody synths will inevitably conjure pictures in your mind both beautiful and haunting.
When asked about their process for recording Cone, Santiago had this to say:
Cone combines my loves of dreampop and French impressionism and sees me reconcile my more "classical" voice with my oddball progressive pop sensibility. A lot of people who have heard Cone without knowing me have gone, "opera," which genuinely surprises me because it's very stripped back.
I do study classical voice, but I don't have a degree and I'm not an operatic soprano. Because my voice sounds how it sounds, my creative output has always occupied this sort of uncanny valley where people in pop and rock go, "that's classical" and people in classical go, "that's pop."
Mandersonian's home studio
When I wrote Cone, I was mostly listening to Cocteau Twins and Debussy and Esperanza Spalding. I've always thought of Mandersonian as being more akin to Tori Amos or Klo Pelgag than like, Puccini or some other puffed up white guy. I really just write songs and do my best to produce them on my own, Cone was just supposed to be a little lo-fi bedroom singer-songwriter quarantine type thing.
Thrifted Kawai keyboard
I recorded this using reaper, a Mackie Onyx interface and an AKG 5 mic. The piano parts were recorded on my upright piano (I lifted the lid and mic'd the hammers themselves) and the orchestrations were done on a thrifted Kawai keyboard of indeterminate age.
Close up of Mandersonian's recording set up
An epic in miniature, Cone is a truly unique little EP that is sure to delight and surprise. Stream it on Spotify and purchase it on BandCamp. Listen to "I: Rickenbackardo's Fall from Grace and Subsequent Belgian Exile" below:
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