Name: Really Well
Brand: Mauno

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

LP-TAR-094

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2019-09-27

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Redeye

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

5052442015970

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Mauno

Genre US

Indie Pop / Shoegaze

Label US

Tin Angel

Really Well, the title of Halifax band Mauno’s new full-length record, comes from a line in the opening track, “Really Really,” which is sung by vocalist and bassist Eliza Niemi. “Ask me how it goes and I’ll tell you all about how I’m doing really well,” she sings over brisk, skiffle-ish fingerpicking. On its face, it’s a pensive track that Niemi calls warbly and wilting, but the subtext is a certain self-deprecation; Niemi explains that it illuminates the humour of empty small talk, which doesn’t actually invite honesty. Really Well, like it’s namesake track and the band which recorded it, is always acutely aware of this: interactions that feign intimacy and authenticity, what is really contained beneath them, and the strange comedy that lives in between them. Really Well is an expansive, idiosyncratic study in these creases, and the ways that music guitars, bass, drums, synths, and vocals can explore and express them. Written by Niemi, vocalist/guitarist Nick Everett, guitarist Scott Boudreau and drummer Adam White and recorded at Chad VanGaalen’s Calgary studio, the record collapses the personal and the professional within critiques of capitalism and creative labour.

Musically, too, it is non-linear, jutting from the twisted, plucky indie-skiffle of the opener to the charged post-punk march of “Half It,” to the spring-reverb tweaked riffing of “Reeling II,” to the dreamy, sidestepping guitar pop of “Expectations,” to the gorgeous, macabre slow-jam of “Vampire.” While Mauno’s 2017 LP Tuning was rooted conceptually in an R. Murray Schaefer text, Really Well is free of conceptual guidelines an early attempt at this record followed a conceptual framework, but was scrapped in favor of a more boundless venture.

“There’s no guiding principle except for just serving the songs,” Everett says. “Everything that will limit and guide what we’re going to do is already there, and has been since the moment we started writing the songs, so it’s almost like this weird implicit thing.” Niemi adds

Really Well

Music US