The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara share a heartfelt journey through grief with their new single and video Per Astra — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Properly conveying grief in music requires just the right blend of delicacy and heaviness. Fortunately, that kind of chemistry is second nature to The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara (aka TCOMAS), the incredibly intuitive musical duo who cast the perfect amount of shade on this focus track from their new album Origins.
Laying out its message at a slowed-down pace that’s appropriately dirge-like yet never deflating, the song finds its narrator yearning to be reunited with a lost loved one, no matter how deep a void she might have to embrace to do it. A synthesizer riff that sounds plucked straight from an early-’80s John Carpenter movie and intermittent, old-school rhythm-box flourishes provide diverting period embellishments to this heart-rending ballad, supporting stately piano arpeggios and emotive vocals both sung and spoken. The seamlessness of the overall sound is a testament to the working methodology of partners Daphne Ang and Andrea Papi, each of whom contributes vocals, music and lyrics to the cause. On the instrumental front, the division of labour sees Ang handling piano and keyboards, while Papi plays electric guitar and bass, programs the drum tracks and produces all their material.
Recorded at their home studio in London’s Camden Town, Per Astra heralds the arrival of Origins, a six-song musing on letting go. Getting the most out of that theme meant working through two distinctly different types of loss: Ang had weathered the passing of someone extremely close to her, whereas Papi had watched as the temporary “renovation” of the firm where he had been working turned into a permanent shutdown. It all qualifies as grief, as a therapist would say; luckily for us, it also makes for great music. “This album is deeply personal and written from the heart,” they declare. “We dedicate it to the people who are still here, and to those we have lost. You’ll find many unexpected twists and turns throughout the album. Such is the chaos and unpredictability of life.”
Per Astra provides a gently elegiac counterpoint to some of the other tracks that dropped in advance of the album proper. Mysterium Tremendum blends death metal, classical music and poetry; Feed The Beast uses its progressive rock/metal framework to explore the theme of addiction and recovery (leading to inclusion in editorial playlists); and Bite The Bullet is a hip-hop/metal hybrid that featured U.K.-based Italian rapper Mr Meuri.
With those releases joining Per Astra on Origins, the Singapore-born Ang and the Italian Papi now have three albums of cutting-edge, boundary-challenging material — an impressive showing, considering they hooked up in London just under five years ago. Their debut Full Spectrum introduced listeners to their eclectic brew of heavy rock, electronic sounds and poetry performance, landing spotlight track Love In The Time Of Pestilence on prominent playlists. The followup Trust No Leaders traced the history of metal and its various sub-genres, but in a highly unconventional way that made room for non-Western musical influences and lyrics inspired by Jungian psychology.
Art-forward to be sure, but you’d expect no less from a pair who display abundant parallel talents as visualists. TCOMAS brainstorm and produce their own videos, which have been screened at numerous prestigious film festivals around the world, receiving 66 official selections and nominations to date. Sites of past triumphs have included the Tokyo International Short Film Festival, the Tsiolkovsky International Space Film Festival and the Ecologico International Film Festival. Ang and Papi also contributed the artwork that adorns the sleeve to Origins, drawing on a background as a painting team that even predates their musical partnership.
Watch the video for Per Astra above, check out the rest of Origins below, and delve into The Chronicles Of Manimal And Samara on their website, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
