- Mano Le Tough has always had a way with dance music that's rich in melody and harmony—just listen to his great "Baby, Let's Love," from 2010, for confirmation—but in the last year or so, he's been making productions that hover on the cusp between track and song, with his own voice nudging them towards the latter. "Mountains" isn't quite the sing-along that last year's "Stories" was; it rolls out with a tracky feel reminiscent of Ricardo Villalobos' "Dexter," thanks to an insistent mid-tom repetition, while the slowly undulating arpeggio recalls Mathew Jonson's melodic meditations. But there's no mistaking this for any other song once the vocal lead comes in, lending a delectable sense of wordless yearning; background Rhodes completes the picture of starry-eyed reverie.
"Even Now" is a more heads-down foray into slow-moving deep house, with trancey arpeggios appearing every now and then to pluck you from the ruminative funk. "She Sighed" is the EP's most atmospheric track, a swirl of pads and sparkling percussion that briefly opens up onto a few bars of the Irish traditional "Banks of the Roses." As with the other songs on the record, it's not what it seems at first blush.
Tracklist A Mountains
B1 She Sighed
B2 Even Now