J. Mamana released his debut album, Nothing New in the West, to acclaim in 2019. His ornate orchestrations, erudite and often wryly funny lyrics, and expressionistic production style are distinguished by obsessive craftsmanship. He contributed phased banjo to Lingua Ignota’s Sinner Get Ready (2021). His music has been featured in Pitchfork and Aquarium Drunkard and he has written for outlets like n+1 and Tape Op. He is a co-founder and serves on the steering committee of the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers. He also has an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from University of Cambridge for some reason.
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“If Mamana is borrowing ideas liberally, he is doing so to feed the massive furnace of his prodigious musical gifts... [Nothing New in the West] is a deeply wrought album that has the solipsistic and melancholy tinge of one made purely from imagination.” - Pitchfork (7.4)
“[Nothing New in the West] is weird and brainy in a fin de siècle sort of way. Throughout, the Old World is bleeding anachronistically into the New, musically as much as lyrically... It’s an intrepid piece of work for fucked up times.“ - Aquarium Drunkard
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Watch the video for “Hope Saved July.”
Watch the video for “Tenderness Lost.”