Mandy, Indiana - I've Seen A Way [Transparent Blue]

Recorded in caves, crypts, and shopping centers, the debut album from Manchester's Mandy, Indiana sounds like it was beamed in from a place no other band has found. Released in May 2023 on Fire Talk, i've seen a way is the culmination of a run that began around 2019 and hit an early peak with 2021's acclaimed ... EP, which drew a remix from Daniel Avery and support slots alongside Squid and Gilla Band. The reputation was for controlled chaos. The album delivers on it and then some.

The setup is minimal and the results are anything but. Buried found-sound samples and sprawling percussive experiments get arranged through oblique nods to film scores and experimental video games, with vocalist Valentine Caulfield delivering everything in her native French, more incantation than lyric. Tracks like "Love Theme (4K VHS)," "Drag [Crashed]," and "Iron Maiden" lurch between menace and euphoria, industrial dread and dancefloor propulsion. Guitarist Scott Fair cites Julia Ducournau's disrupted cinema as a touchstone, and you can hear it in the way the record keeps yanking the floor out from under you.

The credits underline the pedigree. Gilla Band's Daniel Fox and Giant Swan's Robin Stewart handled mixing duties, and Heba Kadry, whose résumé runs from Björk to Ryuichi Sakamoto, mastered it. Imagine Thomas Bangalter locked in This Heat's Cold Storage fridge studio with Special Interest for a weekend and you are somewhere in the right postcode.

Pressed on vinyl LP, i've seen a way is one of the most singular debuts in recent memory, a record that genuinely sounds like nothing before it. For adventurous ears, essential.