Madalyn Merkey - Puzzle Music

Mana - LP

UK, 2022

Ambient / Abstract / Electronic

Little focus on Mana Records, a low-key but always good label run by Andrea Zarza, curator at the British Library Sound Archive, and Blowing Up The Workshop Founder.

It would be quite lazy to call this LP by Californian composer Mandalyn Merkey's LP a maze of an album, but I'll do it anyway. Not the most perilous kind, nor the bleakest one, but a soft, dozing maze of tiny electronic miniatures, somehow recalling Lovely Music Ltd, Robert Ashley, and 1970's Mills College alumni. The beauty of minuscule sounds colliding, in pure psychedelic Californian fashion. Again, immaculate pressing, great mastering: lovely album to listen to. (M/M)