london » The Alternative Mixtapes

Continuing with this week’s trend of featuring songs a bit “out of left field” for me, I got today At The Worlds End, the latest single from The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara. Now, I do like TCOMAS, don’t get me wrong. I even featured them here back in October. But as you will notice when you listen to this track, it is much heavier than the kind of music I usually feature here. It is probably be the heaviest one yet. What can I say? There’s something about the way Daphne delivers her spoken word parts that I can’t resist.

The fact that this song’s theme is related to climate change and the impact that our actions have on the planet also helps. This is reflected very well in the accompanying music video, which you can watch below. Check this tune out, particularly if you enjoy loud guitars. It will be worth it.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

I admit I’m not a big fan of experimental music, but when the result is something this interesting, I’ll listen. The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara, or TCOMAS, are a London-based duo formed in late 2019 by Andrea Papi (Manimal) and Daphne Ang (Samara); and when you have a musical act listing as influences the innovative works of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, and Tool, and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and Jim Morrison; you know that the resulting music will be anything but conventional. They want to bring music, literature, art and history together while defying musical genres boundaries, and their fourth and latest single, Mata Hari, is no exception to that. I warn you, this will not suit everyone, but I really dug it.

Mata Hari was an exotic Dutch dancer who was convicted and executed during World War I for being a German spy, but it also means ‘sun‘ in Malay, and that is the meaning it has on this track, which is told through the eyes of an artist who declared his love for somebody through a painting. The song, with its atmospheric soundscapes, mixes poetry and the spoken word with electronic music and rock, aiming to reimagine how 80s music will sound 60 years from now. Trust me, you are extremely unlike to find something else resembling TCOMAS and Mata Hari.

Give a chance to this immensely creative band. Worst-case scenario, you’ll hear something pretty unique; and best-case, you’ll dig it just like me.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

Everything
Electronic

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The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara – At The Worlds Ends

The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara – Mata Hari