The concept tying together every last note and lyric of ‘Earth-Sized Worlds’ - the debut album from the London/Oxford self-dubbed ‘Flowerkraut’ collective Mandrake Handshake - is an awfully simple one: ‘Welcome to Space Beach’. A mantra to unite under one aesthetic roof the various creative compulsions of this complex, multi-limbed organism - varying at any one time between 7 to 10 members - it’s an album that conspires the alienating vastness of the cosmos against the warm nostalgias of home; tape-soaked Brazilian Sambas morphs into Kosmische Kraturock crusades, and shimmering avant-pop electronics melt into sweetened psychedelic bliss… “Welcome to the Spacebeach - the new era of the Mandrake. Here, where the sea joins the sky, and where the trees touch the stars and where we will have you stay a while”.
‘Earth-Sized Worlds’ is a record that’s intentionally full of surprise, of leftfield turns and closeted experimentation. In close collaboration with producer Dom Kirtley across nine intense 12 hour days at a rooftop studio in Woolwich, the band were like alchemists swilling rarified potions. Mashing together fragments and ideas from artists as far reaching as Jorja Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Pentangle and Gong - bringing in steel drums, choirs, drum machines and obscure percussion - they created their explosions, changing colours and shifting atmospheres. There’s the whirling tape-soaked intro/outro of ‘Time Goes Up’, like an unearthed grainy recording of a Brazilian samba band. Soon there’s 8 minutes of cruscading kosmische krautrock which in turn shatters into the avant-pop shimmeriness of ‘Charlie’s Comet’. There’s the sumptuous pop-riddled gem of ‘The Change And The Changing’ that soon dissolves into the orgiastic hypnotics of ‘King Cnut’ and the battering ramalama of ‘Barranmode’. And just as it starts to get a little too unhinged, the closing title-track, mighty and triumphant, clears the air and brings everything back into focus.
Varying anywhere between 7-10 members - including a dedicated, flamboyant tambourine shaker - their pristine, multi-limbed spectacle of a live show has journeyed up and down the UK and EU in recent times. With multiple headline tours to their name, including a sold-out show at London’s iconic 100 Club, the group have already ticked off slots at the likes of Wide Awake, Green Man and Manchester Psych Fest, as well as shows with psych-figureheads W.H Lung, Pale Blue Eyes, Triptides and Sugar Candy Mountain; the band also attracted widespread plaudits on their UK tour support with Del Amitri in December last year as their profile continues to soar.
With two critically acclaimed EPs already to their name - ‘Shake The Hand That Feeds You’ (released via Nice Swan Records) and ‘The Triple Point of Water’ - Mandrake Handshake’s long list of press champions includes The Independent, The i, Uncut, NME, Loud & Quiet, Dork, DIY, So Young, The Line Of Best Fit, Rough Trade, Clash, Crack, Shindig!, Record Collector and Guitar World, as well as extensive BBC 6 Music (Deb Grant, Don Letts, Gideon Coe) and Radio X (John Kennedy) airplay.
Speaking more on the album, the band say: “We, Mandrake Handshake are all set to arrive at our first destination: Space Beach. A land of dichotomies, where the sea joins the sky and trees reach up and tickle the bellies of stars, Space Beach is a marriage of the organic and mechanical, the intimate and the epic, and offers a heady draught from which you may gladly sup. Here, when peering into this horizon, blooms of planets and comets, asteroids and moons reveal themselves, and, inside them, countless tales: victory and defeat, love and hate, future and past, all wrapped up in each of these Earth-Sized Worlds. So come, join us, and stay awhile".
credits
released February 21, 2025
Played by Mandrake Handshake:
Trinity Oksana - Lead vox, rainstick
Rudy Symonds - Backing vox
Joe Bourdier - Drums, bongos, group vocals
Jake Kavanagh - Bass guitar
Charlie Arrowsmith - Guitar
Scott Custis - Guitar
David Howard-Baker - Organ, piano, keyboards, flute,
saxophone, gankogui, group vocals
Moogieman - Modular synthesis, organ, keyboards, group vocals
Elvis Thirlwell - Tambourine, shakers, maracas, guiro, tingsha, clave, woodblocks, group vocals
Row Janjuah - Guitar, clave, steel drum, shaker, group vocals, whoops and wails
With the help of:
Dom Kirtley - Piano, keys, electric drums/beats
Matt ‘Sergine’ Hartnell - Congo, djembe, bongos, group vocals
Hazel Blacher - Group vocals
Tallis McDuffie - Group vocals
James Ward - Giant shaker
Written by:
Songs 1,2, 4, 8 & 9 - Janjuah/ Oksana
Song 3 - Janjuah/ Arrowsmith
Song 5 - Janjuah
Song 6 - Janjuah/Thirlwell
Song 7 - Mandrake Handshake
Produced by Row Janjuah and Dom Kirtley
Recorded and mixed by Dom Kirtley at Zig-Zag studios/Premises Studios
Mastered by Nick Powell at Lendd Music
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