Irish producer and DJ Mano Le Tough announces his new record, At
The Moment, out August 20th on DJ Koze’s Pampa Records, and
presents the first single, “No Road Without A Turn.” After more than a
decade of releases and touring, Mano has spent the past year at home in
Zurich, rearing his young family and focusing on the positives of 14 months
without performing, amid the uncertainty of the pandemic. In the face of
horror, Mano channelled inspiration. With At The Moment, the follow-up to
2015’s Trails, those struggles have produced a record which balances the
ambivalence of the current moment, with wistful streaks of unguarded
optimism.

At The Moment shows Mano’s modes of expression evolving too. The
synths and rhythms common to earlier works are now complemented with
less familiar sounds and influences. Jangling guitars and sun-bleached
chords envelop his own tender, plaintive vocals in a dappled wash of
summery pop. Another track grounds overlapping melodies and sci-fi
soundtrack pads with hip hop beats, creating a hypnotic slice of slinky retrofuturism. Where there is reflection, there is also a sense of being unafraid.

“I’ve always liked that Mallarmé quote, ‘poetry is the language of crisis,’”
says Mano. “It’s hard to make good music about everything being amazing.
Everything is going great – who wants to listen to that? Anything I’ve done -
anything which I thought had any kind of artistic merit, has been through
struggles I’ve had in my life”.