MICHAEL MANRING

Manring is a master of innovation and way crazy funk fun on the bass. He slaps his Zon bass silly, samples, loops, E-Bows, processes and ultra-sustains his songs into a universe all his own. This is one of the best solo efforts Manring has put on the table to date. I have owned or sampled most of his offerings but on The Book of Flame ALL the stops are pulled out and a real beast is unleashed. Some folks labeled Manring as "disturbed" after Thönk but now we find he is wonderfully beyond help. His live, unedited, no overdub pieces are still a standard setting delight to experience as well as his warped-n-manipulated creations.

"Theseus in the Rains" is a funkified, burpin' bass joy with that tell-tale Manring horn-sound lead. He shifts from a tar pit stomp lethargy to a toe-tappin' alley cat strut in a heartbeat. Truly fun. "Your Ad" is like part II of "Theseus . . ." and adds offending alien invader sound effects. Yeah, yet another a sample-crazy framework for Manring to go wild in. Yo, dis be da phat cool thang happnin y'all. I am tempted to boogie down. "The Adamski Photographs" is crying out to be part III after "Your Ad" with straight up piano added in for the finale with Manring doing guitarish leads that flow right into a Stanley Clarke groove. "Dromedary" is high octane enuff in spots to peel paint or melt the annuli off your woofers. Watch out.

Oh there is much more variety within but I leave the joy of discovery to you now. Live studio piece "No Wontons for Elvis" has a Michael Hedges Live on the Double Planet feel to it and as if Hedges were playing through Manring. (Dear God, We miss ya Hedges.) And to say goodbye to his friend, Manring calms down all the pandemonium on "The Book of Living and Dying" (for Michael Hedges, 1953-1997) and outros into memories and silence. Highly recommended!

Starting with an useless cover of a famous Police track, in my opinion, wasn't a good idea. That song hasn't the right structure to be an instrumental, and using the highest notes of an electric bass to replace the voce of Sting doesn't add anything to it. After this false start , "Hopeful" sounds like another instrumental cover, but I honestly don't know if it's really so. I can't understand what a piano solo does in a bassist's album. So the first proper Manring's track is the third: "Red Right Returnng". Not different from the usual bass overdubbing, but this is what he was used to do on his solo Windham Hill albums.

Things start going better with "Gizmo". It's still a newage track, but there's at least some fusion and Manring shows his instrumental skills also with a good riff in the middle part of the track. Bass harmonics open "Oyasumi Nasai". Plain newage again, with a synth which tries to sound like a Mark Isham's trumpet. Nothing negative, I like newage and I have a lot of Windham Hill stuff at home, but I can't call this "fusion", "Jazz-rock" or "progressive".

More interesting is the cover of Hendrix's "Purple Haze". I don't know how many artists have recorded it. My personal favorite instrumental cover of this song is that of Quintorigo, but this is quite good, too. Then I can imagine what has made the artist decide to make it followed by "Déjà Voodoo", the first track in which there's effectively some fusion and I'd say some progressive, too. The longest track is also the best.

"Watson & Crick" is a strange title for an instrumental track. I ignore the reason why Manring decicated a track to the two nobel prizes. Maybe the harping tries to resemble the structure of DNA, who knows? Another newage track but showing his great bassist skills. On "Wide Asleep" you could expect Pat Metheny's guitar or Eva Cassidy's vocals. The melody and the tempo remind to the famous "Last Train Home" by Metheny. A really nice track. Next we have another skillful excersize with a touch of Sapnish flavor in a Paco de Lucia style but played on bass. "500 Miles High" is one of the albums highlights. The closer is quite good, too. A slow jazz track driven by fretless bass. Ir's when Manring crosses the borders with jazz that I understand why this artist is featured on this site. Again, it's more or less the kind of music that Metheny was used to compose in the same period, newagey but jazz with no doubts.

This album is not a complete waste. At least half of the tracks are of a good level, but the remaining half can be skipped with no regrets. Good for fans and for who likes the bass as main instrument. With some cuts it could have been a 3 stars album.

It was in the 80s. Prog seemed to be almost dead and internet was far to come so I turned into newage and Wyndham Hill artists for a while.

Michael Manring was one of the first that I have approached, also because a not on the album's sleeve was saying "There are no frets in this album". Also it features another big Wyndham Hill's artist that's the great guitarist Micheal Hedges, died in a car crash in 1997.

The music here is newage. It's good quality music, easy jazz, chill-out, it has all the good characteristics of the best newage things. It sometimes reminds to Pat Metheny, like the vocals on "Huge Moon", but I don't know how this excellent bassist is landed on PA.

If you like fretless bass (there was a lot of Fenders in the 80s) and jazzy chillout music this is a great album, I still listen to Manring sometimes and I still like him, but it doesn't fit into the 4 stars defintion because it says "any prog rock music collection".

It's a good album, anyway but it can't have more than three stars.

New rage for the new age?guy

Sub-genre: Jazz/Rock Fusion (this one his a lot of metal edge)
For Fans of: Brand X, Primus, Michael Hedges, Jaco Pastorius
Vocal Style: none
Guitar Style: Distorted rock to metal.
Keyboard Style: Piano on one track
Percussion Style: Rock kit, combo of styles for 2 session drummers.
Bass Style: Primarily fretless played both picked and two-handed tap. Extended range "Hyperbass" on which Manring plays very high pitched guitar solos.
Other Instruments: Bells and odd percussion
You are not likely to enjoy this album if: the trademark sound of a popped and slapped fretless bass just isn't your thing.

Summary: At the time of this album Michael Manring was known primarily for his "New age" work with Montreaux, Michael Hedges as well as his solo works. Thoṅk is a marked shift in Manring's musical direction; not only in this album, but in his simultaneous collaborations on projects like Attention Deficit and Spastic Ink. On Thoṅk, Manring teams up with an all-star cast of old friends and classmates from a plethora of musical backgrounds. Former Primus Drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander and ex-Journey turned jazz session percussionist Steve Smith provide the battery. Ex-Testament metal guitarist Alex Skolnick (also Attention Deficit band mate) and ex-Dregs ax man Steve Morse provide guitar work.
The album opens with a bang. The first thing I noticed looking through the liner notes was that the opener, Big Fungus had no guitarist, yet there was a distinct "guitar" sound carrying the main theme. Manring plays in extended range "Hyperbass" which can provide rather high notes. The rock elements to the opener, and others like Disturbed and Cruel and Unusual, were unexplored in Manring's previous releases. Throughout the album are little surprises like that. While the ensemble pieces are very full and bring a complete package of all the guest players' tools, the most impressive and memorable moments of the album come from Manring's solo bass. He is able to apply a tapping "stick" style that allows complete bass, rhythm and melody from a single instrument. Monkey Businessman is a ruckus solo work that fits the title. The high notes obtained from harmonics combined with the rhythmic bass shuffle are unmatched in complexity of groove. The albums closer is a very emotional complete solo bass work appropriately named The Enormous Room. Once again Manring uses harmonics with sailing fretless slides to create unmatched texture: a truly beautiful way to end the album.

Final Score: This is a top 100 album in my collection and it is a pleasure to finally have it here on Prog Archives. Thoṅk has something for nearly every progressive music fan. Not a masterpiece, but a hidden gem whose flaws only add to the character. One of the keystones to Jazz/Rock fusions crossover into metal. 4 stars.

After his earliest albums being mostly new age and his previous two albums standing firmly in the jazz/rock fusion field, this album is Manring's take on a solo bass album. Just one man and his bass(es), no overdubs, and a lot of basswork which makes your jaw drop and your practicing arms go limp. On the album, Michael uses no less than five basses, including the incredible Hyperbass - a 4-string bass with a 3-octave fretless neck and D-tuner pegs on every tuning peg, plus a specially designed bridge allowing him to change the tuning in other ways. Michael had the bass designed after realizing how often he changed his tuning during concerts, often many times within the same song. The extended liner notes for the album list at least 43 different tunings used over the course of the album. He doesn't like to stick with one, that's for sure.

Some people may think that a solo bass outing could get boring or repetitive. I've thought that over the years as well, but after listening to this one I've been assured that some people know how to keep the music changing throughout. With his wide variety of basses, tunings, and styles, Manring keeps a constant flow of new sounds coming out of the stereo. Sometimes he plays prepared bass, similar to the prepared piano used in some contemporary classical music. Some tracks (such as the opener and the second track) are on the funky side of things, some (Solipsism, for example) are more avant-garde, and some are melodic and beautiful (I Left America, and later Selene). All of that is covered in the first four tracks, and we see more of these styles and some new ones as the album goes on.

Michael is one of, if not THE most talented bassist on the scene right now. Having studied with Jaco Pastorius and honed his talents over the past 20+ years (his first solo recording was released in 1986, and he played with others before that) in a variety of styles (from his own new age and jazz rock/fusion releases to the group Attention Deficit to guest appearances with such groups as Spastic Ink), I'm sure there's nothing he can't play at this point. He makes great use of the tuning changes present throughout, not to mention his control of any and all harmonics possible. Having seen videos of his performances over the years, it's clear that he enjoys playing bass in general, and his liner notes for this album state that playing solo is his favorite way to go. It really shows here, as he really gets to explore all the possibilities of his basses over the course of 52 minutes. You may not be surprised to hear this, but I'd recommend the album only to those of you who are infatuated with the bass guitar. It's really a great work, and I think it sets a high mark for any aspiring solo bassist looking to make a technically brilliant, yet still emotionally moving and interesting album. Three stars for this album from me - if we were on a forum specifically dedicated to bass and bassists, it would probably be five, but as it is I feel I would be stretching it a bit too much if I gave it even four here.

As almost all the Wyndham Hill catalog, I think this album, more than JR/F can be defined as New Age.

I have purchased it when it was released because in that period I was into new age music and I wasn't disappointed at all.

The distinctive element of this album is that there are no guitars. All the melodies are played by bass while the other instruments gives it a jazzy background. The music is relaxing and peaceful, like new age is used to be, and this is the contact point that I see between this kind of newage and prog.

Said so, there are some highlights of playing skills in tracks like "Geometry". I don't know if there's overdubbing. If not it's one of the greatest bass solos I've ever heard.

In few words, was this a newage site I would have given it a high rating because this album is good. But honestly I don't see how it can be considered progressive and this means that the rating can't exceed the 3 stars.

I think Michael Manring has later released something more progressive, but this definition doesn't apply to this album.

This is the Michael Manring album to own. On this release he sheds the Windham Hill chains (although it was released on Windham Hill's subsidiary label, High Street), and plays some heavy jazz rock fusion. And he has some high powered musicians backing him up, most notably Steve Morse (The Dixie Dregs, Kansas, etc.).

Compositionally, Manring is good, but not great. But then, he had previously been creating music for people who aren't quite awake, so I guess he needs practise in that area. The songs are mostly written around his two-handed tap and slap style, similar to the way Stu Hamm plays. His fretless bass soloing sometimes gets close to the sound of Jaco Pastorius.

The bast tracks: Snakes Got Legs and Bad Hair Day.

Highly recommended for the bass fanatic.

Michael Manring could have been the successor to Jaco Pastorius. In fact, at times his bass playing sounds similar to Jaco's. But what happened? He pigeonholed himself into the new age style. He got himself signed to the Windham Hill record label, the label that was proud to create nothing more than unobtrusive musical wallpaper.

This album is yet another Windham Hill release. The majority of the songs are light (almost impossibly light) fusion pieces, with telling titles like Wide Asleep. The only interesting songs are the bass solos, where, as good as they are, I get the feeling that the Windham Hill executives were in the room, telling him to "Keep it down, We don't want to wake our listeners."

2.5 stars - rounded down