PHIL MANZANERA
50 Years Of Music UMR
Celebratory overview of Roxy man’s multifarious solo work.
Emerging at the same time as Bryan Ferry’s half-century solo retrospective, this splendid and sprawling 11-CD collection of the former Roxy Music guitarist’s own work revels in his distinctive identity.
“It manoeuvres between art-rock, prog and world music. “”
That said, there are moments, early in its arc, where the sketchy vocals of Tim Finn, Brian Eno and others leave one wondering if those tracks would have been more rich and alluring, less reedy and tentative, if they’d been worked up with the full Roxy magic. No matter: there’s a wealth of invention and intrigue here, as Manzanera manoeuvres between art-rock agility, Canterbury-esque prog skills and his prescient, lifelong interest in what only later became labelled “world music”. With an abundance of A-list guest players, his albums fizz with impatient intelligence.