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Sendelica — One Man's Man
(Fruits de Mer winkle 47, 2022, CD / 2LP / DL)

by Henry Schneider, Published 2023-03-08

One Man's Man Cover art

Sendelica, the band that thinks a fifteen-minute track is a short song, has a new double LP on Fruits de Mer Records. As a follow-up to their 2021 critically acclaimed. and sold out, album And Man Created God, Sendelica decided to attempt to decipher when exactly humans became “Man.” Each side of the double LP explores the various disagreements between paleontologists and anthropologists, with one of these experts quipping “One man’s man Is another man’s monkey,” hence the album title. Side One is “The Dawn of Man - Homo Habilis and Homo Rudolfensis,” Side Two is “Homo Erectus and Denisovans,” Three is “Neanderthal and Homo Sapien,” and Four is “Future Man - Homo Superior.” These track names introduced me to some new terms. Homo habilis is one of the earliest members of the genus Homo and has a slightly larger braincase and smaller face and teeth than Australopithecus, but still retains some ape-like features. Homo habilis means “handy man” because they were thought to be the first makers of stone tools. The fossil remains were discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Only one good fossil of Homo rudolfensis exists, found in Kenya. Its braincase is considerably larger than habilis. Homo erectus is the oldest known early human to have possessed modern human-like body proportions; they lived in Africa, Western Asia, China, and Indonesia. Denisovans were closely related to Neanderthals and fossil remains were discovered in Siberia. Neanderthal is the first extinct human species to have its DNA decoded. Homo sapien is modern man, and Homo superior is the speculated human we will evolve to become. Now to the music. Each of the four side-long instrumentals features Peter Bingham (guitar, bass, synth, Mellotron Guitar, and field recordings), Colin Consterdine (keyboards, beats), Lee Relfe (saxophone), Glenda Pescado (bass), Rhiannon Jones (viola), and Mike Laakso (synths) performing a different psychedelic jam. Side One is twenty minutes of Tangerine Dream inspired atmospheres beginning with the call to worship church bell, segueing to sequences, heavy guitar, keyboards, and sax that abruptly changes to a “Born to Be Wild” inspired climax and outro. Side Two is sixteen minutes of delays, trippy grooves, and sax that morphs to a very slow ambient bridge with delayed guitar and sax and then to a dark closure. Side Three is primarily delayed sax with tons of resonance for a late night urban vibe, which then takes a ride on the London undergound. Side Four consists of swirling and sweeping synths and pulsating rhythm and a slow repeated two note riff as the background for more sax as future man goes on a cosmic journey to the stars. You will be left breathless after this journey from the dawn of time.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Sendelica, Colin Consterdine

More info
http://sendelica.bandcamp.com/album/one-mans-man

 

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