Mannequin might be known for putting out “anxious and sharp-edged sounds associated with, say, the Cold War of the 1980s”, as the press release of Waves Of The Future describes a reference point for the label. A rough forth of its releases so far are re-issues or archive releases, like the latest (and notorious) ones by Nocturnal Emissions and Din A Tesbild. But Mannequin does not simply glorify a bygone era of 80ties Post-Punk and Industrial. The label is also releasing new material by contemporary artists like JASSS and group A. Alessandro Adriani, the man behind Mannequin, describes the label’s balance as follows:
“We released way more new acts than old ones. However, in the digital era, we all need to insert data into folders, categorize It. Therefore, it’s easier to say: ‘oh Mannequin, the EBM label’. However, if you look through our catalogue, you discover that we did only a couple of ‘EBM’ records (whatever meaning this acronym might have today) on more than 100+ releases.
Mannequin is an eclectic label and it is not paying any mind to hypes of the moment.
My ears are always open, oriented to the past and to the future at the same time. It’s the present that scares me the most—when things become a cliché, repeating themselves in an empty way.”
Adriani wants to go beyond fetishized sounds and gear, something that he experiences also first hand:
“Gear and sounds fetishism is no longer interesting to me. I think the Internet is amplifying this discussion beyond the reality. What I see instead is people collaborating through different ways (and gear), coming from different scenes, in order to create something new and exciting. And after all, such contrapositions and dualities don’t need to be always seen with a negative approach.”
Working with new bands that have not released much yet while also giving artists the well-deserved attention they maybe did not get it in the past – those are Adriani’s aims and Mannequin is trying to re-frame certain aesthetics with new and newfound releases. This also seems to be the goal for future projects. Adriani will not only continue the ‘Death Of The Machines’ series with Black Merlin, Amato and more but also re-issue three LPs of early Italian computer-musician Doris Norton. Mannequin seems to be an affair of the heart after all, as Adriani explains:
“In Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Gattopardo, an amazing romance from 1958, you can read:
‘If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change’… Well, Mannequin doesn’t belong to this philosophy.
I see the world around us and I take inspirations and emotions from it without any speculation behind. I just release what I love to hear and what gives me back something in terms of emotions and feelings. It’s way easier for me than you can imagine.”
So while gathering the artists for the labels 100th release Waves Of The Future Adriani followed his intuition. The common denominator of the eight producers involved is that they have not released something properly on the label so far and mostly, all are friends and supporters—like Alessio Natalizia aka Not Waving:
“He is the other Italian who had the power to excavate an Italian 80s archive and bring it back to a worldwide audience with the great Mutazione compilation. I feel very close to his vision and also to his taste with Ecstatic, the label he runs.”
For Waves Of The Future, Natalizia handed in one of his trademark Not Waving tracks, melting post-punk and computer music into an acidic and fun, rightfully titled “Secret Weapon”.
Waves Of The Future is out on February 16th. Besides Not Waving the compilation features Silent Servant, Ron Morelli, Beau Wanzer, Shawn O’Sullivan, Willie Burns, Illum Sphere as well as An-i and Adriani himself.