Manpack Variant "Sticky Wickets" $12

Manpack Variant is the persistently intermittent commingling of electronicists Jaime Fennelly (Peeesseye, peeinmyfacewithsurgery, Phantom Limb & Bison) and Chris Peck, resulting in transcendent sound rituals and unexplainable detritus such as the recent "Flash Vault" 7" split with Gerritt on Misanthropic Agenda and now "Sticky Wickets," the bands first full-length CD.

"Sticky Wickets" will take the paint off your walls. Bone-crunching noises fly in an analog heaven, short on altitude but high on fire? Insanity? Asylums? Try it all on for size. Manpack Variant are bringing barrels of concrete to the show, ready to build a scuzzed-out monument complete with skeleton electronics and bags of fuzz. And to add even more sparkle, "Sticky Wickets" features original artwork by Jason McLean.

Entranced by latent characteristics of military-industrial sound hardware, Manpack Variant has laid audiences from Vienna to Vancouver (to waste) with there own special bland of ecstatic nose drool. Ambient ambient ambient!

Ambient ambient ambient!

Four years now they have failed to either get a sharper blade or have a new one made. Take a load off: the album woks!

tracklist
1. flash pumper
2. matted fur
3. nice face (audio sample)
4. ac ferries
5. heartstream

Praise for Manpack Variant & related works:

"Manpack Variant are a group unknown to me. Manpack Variant fills the A side with what initial sounds like it will be minimal sparse turntable noise ala Airport War, but that quickly changes as blasts of tape manipulation and synthesizer squall burst in the fold. What follows is very similar to early Yellow Swans, back when their name had a changing D word before the YS and their work was a lot more blast beat oriented. MV definitely had my head rocking; their track ends (too soon in my opinion) with applause" - Mike Pollard, Arbor Records

"Largely a product of acoustic guitar, vocals, harmonium, and assorted percussion, the disc’s dark shadows don’t explicitly reek of evil, but the vibes of the album are distinctly downcast. Oo-ee-oo may not be a product of demonic possession or religious fervor, but the disc hints at flavors of both, and Chris Forsyth, Jaime Fennelly and Fritz Welch are shown to have certainly hit a vein." - Dusted

"In a mere half-hour, the Brooklyn-based trio creates an oppressive miasma of sound that'll leave you as bewildered as however-many-hundreds of Spartans running over your head." - Philadelphia City Paper