Phil Manzanera: The Music 1972-2008

Phil Manzanera
The Music 1972-2008
(Expression Records)

Featuring some great Roxy Music pieces: the reggae influenced “Amazona” where he wails like a master, the almost new wave-ish “Over You” and his expert backing chords and perfect lead on “Running Wild;” his own pieces like the slightly spooky jangle of “Fronteria,” his mournful leads on “Diamond Head,” and the centerpiece of the first disc “East of Asteroid,” a great chunking instrumental that shows off Manzanera’s fantastic live band, Phil Manzanera’s sparkling 3-disc set The Music 1972-2008,  starts off on Disc One featuring his first “2o years spent providing the musical context for the words of other co writers and writing varied instrumental music.”

Disc two is equally as impressive, relying on Manzanera’s solo works from his albums Vozero, 6PM and 50 Minutes Later. Opener “La Vida Moderna,” opens with a weird but effective piano and a reggae beat, “Mystic Moon” had a jangly beat, “Green Spikey Cactus” a distorted voice and real good noisy bass, plus wailing harmonica. By “6PM” Manzanera shows us his skill on acoustic and follows suit on a truly sweet “Love Devotion” (sounding a little like Gilmour here, I can see why the gus has played in Gilmour’s backing band) and “Wish You Well.”

Disc 3 is a DVD, featuring a sprawling “Revolution To Roxy,” a 2008 documentary about Phil Manzanera plus a bunch of video clips, from as early as Diamond Head captured in Sweden in 1975 all the way through a 2006 appearance at Fender’s 50^th celebration at Wembley.