Two men from Nantes, Rasim Biyikli and Charles-Eric Charrier, have now made a third album as MAN. This one, "Helping Hand" gives us electronic drifts of moody atmospheres with a mostly agreeable meandering feel. The title and the sounds imply therapy and support. You’re unlikely to find anger, anxiety or hard critique anywhere here. For the most part it’s pleasantly soothing.
Once a mildly over-excited first track ("You’re In For It") has finished it’s sub-disco leeriness, the 9 remaining tunes have a meditative stillness, held together by sticking to conventional keys and adding plenty of acoustic instrumentation (including some very mellow piano and acoustic bass). Percusssion is minmal, and hints of dance tempos are rare. Events are hinted at and half promised, but seem to be held away from direct contact as one background episode follows another. There are gentle builds, but a rush of piano notes into the foothills of a crescendo in the very last tune ("8mm") achieves excitement by virtue of the long stillness that has gone before. That title suggests the obvious home for this kind of suggestive, non linear stuff in general. Film scores.
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In the absences of a film, this is music to project dream states or moods into. Its avoidance of certainty or resolution seems to be deliberate. That odd first track apart, there are no fumbles or false starts and all the sounds offered to us have a richness that absorbs attention and holds back any concrete world that isn’t teased from the listeners imagination by the notes or the ambient snatches of familiar noises or voices.
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