Black Ocean Blue Sky is a memorable new album from Berlin-based project Mann de Hu, depicting a wide range of emotions and tonal dispositions — from the spacey electronic introspection of “Black Ocean” to the initial piano-laden haunts of “Blue Sky.” Mann de Hu represents the work of artist and multi-instrumentalist Oded Korach, who leads the songwriting, compositions, and various instrumentation, in addition to collaborations from Omer Yosha and Roi Tsaadi.
Its light/dark dynamics represented in the album title, Black Ocean Blue Sky also stirs in its eclectic array of narratives — different on each track. For example, “The Wrong Party (for Liraz)” tells a story personal to Korach, whose friend went to a party on October 7th, 2023, that ultimately became the site of a terrorist attack. The “wake me up,” pleas resonate within the nature of questioning reality, and its deeply tragic circumstances that tend to arise. “I don’t belong here,” the sentiments furthers amidst clanging piano and intriguing electronic glistening.
A variety of highlights show throughout, including the aforementioned “Black Ocean,” which compels in its mixture of synths arpeggios and distortion-touched momentum. In another aesthetical realm entirely, “Riverside Story” depicts the sweetness of falling in love, set within quaint guitar twangs that invoke a lush ’70s pop harmoniousness. Also stirring is the touching “Once,” reminiscing on “once upon a time,” as acoustics develop into a psych-pop eeriness; it’s an emotive retrospective on a past relationship, captivating in its heartfelt emotion and atmospheric ascent. Black Ocean Blue Sky is a strongly memorable, personal album from Mann de Hu.
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“Black Ocean” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup, as part of the artist’s promotional campaign.
