Nan Vernon: Manta Ray
05/28/2019
Maybe you remember that a few months ago I got excited about a track by Nan Vernon on a compilation album (see this post). It was a Cruise-Lynch-Badalamenti-sounding arrangement of an old Bobby Fuller Four song. I had never heard of her, but quickly discovered that she had released one album, Manta Ray, in the mid-1990s. It's out of print but used copies can be found on Amazon, and I immediately bought it. I see now that it can also be found, and really cheap, on Discogs.
What with one thing and another, including having been off pop music for Lent, I only recently gave it several serious listens. I can now report that while it isn't the Lynchian masterpiece I was hoping for (though not expecting), it is extremely good. Moreover, it has the seeds of greatness, and I wonder why she never made another. Manta Ray is 25 years old now. I'd like to think that she's been off doing other things, raising a family or something, becoming more wise and mature, and is going to come back with an album that fulfills the promise of this one. Not likely, I guess, but that's ok: one brilliant work is enough.
Don't think I'm being unduly swayed by the fact that the jacket photos show her as very attractive in a way that happens to push my buttons. Remember, when I was enchanted by that first track I didn't even know who was singing, much less what she looked like. She could have looked like Rumplestiltskin for all I knew. Or cared.
The first track on Manta Ray, "Motorcycle," is sort of a female Springsteen thing, a rocker with somewhat obscure road-and-romance lyrics. The more characteristic songs are slower ones like "No More Lullabies," which really make the most of her lush and powerful voice. I could swear I've heard this song somewhere else:
My impression after one hearing was that this is a very good, very well-produced mainstream sort of record. That's pretty faint praise, especially as "mainstream" coming from me is at best a neutral term, and at worst dismissive. But it kept getting better and I changed "very good" to "brilliant."
The arrangements and production are part of the appeal: there are all sorts of interesting and unconventional little touches, as you can hear in "No More Lullabies." Maybe best of all from my point of view is that as it goes on the album takes a turn toward the strange. There's a very Brecht-Weillian song in German, "Johnny's Birthday," credited only to "hollander," and with no translation of the lyric. And the last song, which is also the title song, is a surrealistic vision that puts me in mind of Kate Bush. I'm not the only one who's had that thought. In looking around for information about Nan Vernon on the web (there's not a whole lot), I ran across this comment:
If she had gone the direction of the song "Manta Ray" I think she'd be up there among the goddesses*. As it is, she's an extrememly worthy apostle.
....
* (my personal musical goddesses being Kate Bush, Happy Rhodes, and Jane Siberry)
I don't know Happy Rhodes but other than that, yes indeed.
Her recorded work since this album seems to consist entirely of one-off covers, like the one I first heard. You can find some of them on YouTube. She should do a whole album of those, maybe more than one. I would, as the kids say, totally buy that. I've always thought it one of the weaknesses of post-1965 pop music that artists generally want to write all their own material. I understand there are financial reasons for that, but too many of them aren't that good at that part of it.
I put the CD in my amazon cart but I won't hit buy now till Im back from Spain.
Posted by: Grumpy as ever | 05/29/2019 at 09:43 AM
I'll of course be interested in hearing your reaction.
Posted by: Mac | 05/29/2019 at 10:48 AM
Hoping to give it a listen over the weekend.
Posted by: Rob G | 05/30/2019 at 06:21 AM
I've had "Motorcycle" stuck in my head since I woke up this morning. Don't know why because it's several days since I heard it.
Posted by: Mac | 05/30/2019 at 08:35 AM
I bought this record and listen to it in the car. Its OK, except for the at that time required Track 10 which is just noises. You can see things have progressed or got worse since the days when this record was produced but one sign of progress seems to be forgetfulness of the exigence for Track 10.
Posted by: Grumpy as Ever | 09/12/2019 at 10:44 AM
I don't know if musicians forgot the exigence or they mothballed it, but I'd count it as a Good Thing and progress
Posted by: Grumpy as Ever | 09/12/2019 at 11:18 AM
Hmm, I don't remember that. If I can find the cd I'll check it out. I may well have liked it. I'm thinking I may have over-praised this album because I liked some of it so much.
Posted by: Mac | 09/12/2019 at 11:35 AM
Oh my goodness. Track 10 is "Fisherman," one of the Kate-worthy tracks.
Posted by: Mac | 09/12/2019 at 02:31 PM
Yiked
Posted by: Grumpy | 09/12/2019 at 04:14 PM
I don't even think it's all that weird. It does have some weird sounds in the background. You are talking about the track called "Fisherman," right? Well, personal taste and all that.
Posted by: Mac | 09/12/2019 at 05:34 PM
ON MY CD PLAYER IN THE CAR IT IS TRACK 10. IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE ALL WEIRD NOISES.
Posted by: GRUMPY | 09/12/2019 at 07:22 PM
THAT'S ODD. :-)
Posted by: MAC | 09/12/2019 at 09:45 PM
Grumpy, I put this on the shoegaze thread but don't know if you saw it.
Got the new Long Beard album yesterday (Means to Me) and it's very good. I especially like the song "Snow Globe." The first half is better than the second half imo, but it's still pretty enjoyable. I imagine it will grow on me like the first one did.
Posted by: Rob G | 09/13/2019 at 08:33 AM
Glad you like it
Listened to Fisherman again and its ahem experimental
Posted by: Grumpy | 09/13/2019 at 08:39 PM
That I agree with.
Posted by: Mac | 09/13/2019 at 09:41 PM
It was all a misunderstanding. I stuff all the CDs I want to listen to into the door pockets of the car. I always take new CDs and put them straight into the car doors. I bought Mazzy Star and Manta Ray at the same time, when I got back from the camino. I checked on the slip cover to see that track 10 was the Fisherman, but I didn't open the slip cover - in which case I would have seen that the CD was sitting in inside, and was not in the CD player. Today I took the CD out and discovered that when I tried to put it away. Its not the Ray CD. Its Mazzy Star.
Track 10 on Mazzy Star has a lot of tambourines not to mention cowbells, and sounds vaguely reminiscent of 'All Tomorrow's Parties.'
I listened to the real Fisherman just to celebrate, and its striking that, unlike the other one, it actually mentions a fisherman.
This is what comes of being brainy.
Posted by: grumpy | 09/14/2019 at 05:52 PM
:-)
That would be this song, I guess? I like it but I like noise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNu3tI-GVg4
Posted by: Mac | 09/14/2019 at 06:40 PM
Nan Vernon was my first Facebook friend. No joke. I was a contributing writer for msnbc.com at the time, writing about music that I fancied. I first heard her played on KEXP late at night, a track from a collection of Henry Mancini covers (she does Moon River). She and I struck up a brief email correspondence.
She is the daughter of John Vernon, the actor who played Dean Wormer on Animal House. She had a stint touring as the bassist in Dave Stewart's (ex-Eurythmics) band. Nan told me that she has roughly a double-album's worth of music recorded since Manta Ray. She was working on a deal with Island Records, but they folded before it could be realized. Since then, she's popped up here and there doing cover songs and voice dubs for Rob Zombie movies. Her boyfriend, Wolfgang Matthes was film composer Tyler Bates's studio tech for many years.
Nan moved back to Vancouver, Canada in recent years. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to be doing much with music any more, despite my best encouragements.
Posted by: Del | 04/15/2022 at 11:34 PM
That's fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to pass along that information. I bet there are some gems in that double album's worth of music and I hope it gets out. Anybody who can elicit a serious comparison to Kate Bush and Jane Siberry has got some serious talent.
Posted by: Mac | 04/16/2022 at 07:57 AM
I'm not keen on all the stuff on Manta Ray, but I do think she has a great voice and would love to hear more!
Two recent things with female singers that I really like: the new Beach House double album 'Once Twice Melody' is fantastic. Eighteen full songs, no filler pieces, and not a clunker among them.
Also, back last summer a friend put me on to a NYC group called Tempers, and their brand new one, 'New Meaning' is very good. Dark synth-pop with a Lynchian feel, and a singer that at times sounds a little bit like what's-her-name from Mazzy Star. Their previous record, 'Private Life,' has become a go-to favorite.
Posted by: Rob G | 04/16/2022 at 08:53 AM
Manta Ray is definitely mixed, to my taste. Not that there's anything bad on it, but much of it, as I said in the post, is "just" good solid more or less mainstream music. But those tracks that venture further afield--wow.
I'm slightly surprised to hear that about Beach House. I really kind of thought, from their first album or two, that they would be something of a one-trick pony, not likely to develop very far. I would say I'll listen to it, and I may, but I have *such* a backlog of unheard or barely heard music. Tempers sounds like something I would like.
Posted by: Mac | 04/16/2022 at 09:21 AM
Beach House started moving away from their early sound with their third album 'Teen Dream', which came out in 2010, but their big breakthrough record was 2012's 'Bloom.' The next two didn't veer too far from Bloom's territory, but '7', which came out in 2018, showed a notable expansion of their sound. The new one follows suit -- the sound is bigger and the musical territory broader. There are some tracks on it which in a sane musical universe would be pop hits -- ridiculously better than most of the "pop" stuff one hears today. I mean, cut this track down to a four minute single and by every right it should be huge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84FZgvvr6I
As a matter of fact, I'd venture a guess that if one of today's well known pop stars like The Weeknd or Lana Del Rey did a similar track it would be a big hit. The former kind of already did it with his song "Save Your Tears," which is a good track but suffers from not having enough Auto-Tune (lol).
Posted by: Rob G | 04/18/2022 at 06:03 AM
I actually have both Bloom and 7 and like them but have not listened to them very attentively.
I don't hear much currently popular pop music. But when I do I almost always dislike the basic sound of it. I just looked at the Billboard Hot 100 and don't recognize a single title, and only maybe every third artist names. And I absolutely can't abide Auto-Tune. Nevertheless, I listened to that Weeknd song and it's sorta not too awful. Apart from the a-t. I like the instrumental backing, which is very unusual for me with current pop.
Posted by: Mac | 04/18/2022 at 08:53 AM
Yeah, the Weeknd song has a strong 80's feel to it, which is what initially caught my ear when I heard it in some store or other. When I listened to it at home though, the auto-tone killed it for me. I can take auto-tune in small doses when it's used as an effect, like some artists used to use the Vocoder. I've heard a few trip-hop/electronica artists use it like that, but when it's prominent/noticeable in the whole song that's a big turn-off for me -- I find it very annoying.
Posted by: Rob G | 04/18/2022 at 11:26 AM
I just listened to Bloom. I must have listened to it more than I remembered, because much of it seemed pretty familiar, and really good. The songs are all rather similar, not just the songs themselves but the whole presentation, and it could be criticized on those grounds, but I didn't really find it boring.
Posted by: Mac | 04/23/2022 at 11:27 PM
Just like the other person in the comments, I used to be Facebook friends with Nan, and she also told me that she recorded some new stuff waiting to be released. That was years ago (maybe ten or slightly less). To my deep regret, there's been no updates since. She has an IMDb page, and apparently she still does odd jobs for Tyler Bates and provides vocalizing for various soundtracks, be it Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy or Tubi's random slasher flick. She's also currenly active in her private Instagram, where she mostly posts her quaint life like nature or cats.
I absolutely adore Nan, and the fact that there, most likely, will never be a sophomore album, is my Roman empire. Since recently, Manta Ray is streamable on Spotify and Apple Music (probably thanks to Jonathan Perkins, who remembered her all these years since Dave Stewart's band and included some of her works in his compilation album), so fingers crossed someone will convince her to self-publish, which is easier than ever. God knows I'll die from happiness if that ever happened.
Posted by: Gor | 05/02/2025 at 10:52 PM
Thanks for the update. I think I'll listen to Manta Ray again. I hope she's happy, whatever she's doing. One can do a lot worse than nature and cats. (I say as I reach around the cat on my lap to get to the keyboard.)
Manta Ray isn't on Pandora, only a couple of Halloween soundtrack tracks. I think I'll listen to Manta Ray again soon.
Posted by: Mac | 05/03/2025 at 12:18 PM