Man Man’s Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between is out today worldwide on Sub Pop, and also streaming here. The 17-track effort features “On the Mend,” “Future Peg,” “Cloud Nein,” “Sheela,” and “Animal Attraction,” was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S. Husky Höskulds (Tom Waits, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen Toussaint), and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping).
Rolling Stone, in its 4-star review, says, “It makes sense that Ryan Kattner of Man Man would release his best album to date during a pandemic. His band persona, Honus Honus, is perpetually down on his luck — bizarre and lovelorn, lonely and insane — haunted. In short, he’s all of us right now…the grotesque and the gorgeous has served Man Man well through the years — and with Dream Hunting, they’ve reached the ideal mix: more gorgeous than grotesque, more raw than ragged.”
The AV Club says, “Honus Honus—a.k.a. Ryan Kattner—is back with his freewheeling off-kilter pop group Man Man, and possibly its most accessible record yet. As eclectic as ever, the sprawling mix of horns, keys, percussion, guitars, and more remains a half-step away from sounding like the most unusual cabaret act in modern times.”
Shindig Magazine noted the album for it’s “touches of Tom Waits-ian squalor, Broadway degradation, and fin de siècle decadence” and its “utterly infectious (pun intended) ‘Cloud Nein’, with its ‘Paul Williams as performed by Captain Beefheart’ sound… it’s just one of 17 sparkling tracks, the album a bold comeback after seven years of silence…”
And Glide Magazine offers this, “Throughout the album, Kattner spins fascinating tales of love, lust, death, the occult, and a goat attack. The piano-based songs carry elements of jazz and rock, with Kattner’s keen ear for sing-along melodies matched only by his desire to attack such melodies with unexpected bursts of bedlam. Those tumultuous bursts, occurring frequently and usually without warning, are part of what makes Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between so exciting, with no dull moments even over 17 tracks of content.”
Dream Hunting… is available from Sub Pop and select independent retailers in North America.LP orders through megamart.subpop.com will be delayed slightly due to a Covid-19 related pressing plant closure. The limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl is nearly sold out despite these delays and is only available while supplies last. Meanwhile, in the U.K.and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive their own slight variation of the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl that has fortunately not experienced any production delays (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Man Man will be hosting “The Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between Social-Distancing Telethon”today, Friday, May 1st from 1 pm PST until the wheels drop off. Fans can watch live through Sub Pop’s YouTube Live channel and the band’s Facebook account. The telethon will feature social-distancing style performances from the new album and special guests throughout the simulcast.
Man Man’s “On the Mend” is a new highlight from Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between - A heartbreak-post-breakup pop song with Swordfishtrombones-vibes, that includes backing vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski and Rebecca Black. Stream it in all the places, over here.
Honus Honus says of the track, “I wrote this a year or so after a painful break-up and although I was in a better place at the time, I wanted to touch on all of those raw emotions someone has to work through in order to get healthy and able to love themselves again. Musically, the tempo, the push, and pull of the band, the openness of it all just drives this home. So, yes, it’s a bit of a heavy song but I think it’s also one about hope, healing, letting go and moving on. The heart can be cruel but you can’t let it consume you.”
Dream Hunting…will be available on CD/2xLP/CS/DL worldwide on May 1st, 2020 and is available for preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last).
After street date, a limited supply of the Loser edition LP will be available at select independent retailers in North America and at Man Man’s future live shows. Meanwhile, in the U.K. and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Ever the character, Honus Honus has also been hosting the delightfully weird “From Honie Pond” shower sessions on Instagram Live. The good, clean fun (head and shoulders ONLY, folx!) features chats with fans and surprise guests, can be seen live Monday through Friday at 1 pm PT -> instagram.com/honushonus.
A dancer hunts for a studio rental with a green screen and encounters a cast of strange characters in the wonderful, absurdist new video for Man Man’s “Future Peg,” directed by Stephanie Ward, and a single from the forthcoming Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between.
Dream Hunting… is now available for preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last).
After street date, a limited supply of the Loser edition LP will be available at select independent retailers in North America and at Man Man’s future live shows. Meanwhile, in the U.K. and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Man Man’s previously announced U.S. tour dates (April 24th-May 22nd) in support of Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between are in the process of being rescheduled at this time. Additional info to be announced soon.
U.S. shows April 24th-May 22nd, 2020. Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between isout May 1st worldwide from Sub Pop.
Man Man is announcing the first U.S. dates in support of Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, his forthcoming new album and Sub Pop debut. The 18-date, late-spring tour now begins April 24th in Salt Lake City at Metro Music Hall and currently ends May 22nd in Los Angeles at The Roxy. The trek will include stops in Denver (CO), St. Louis (MO), Cincinnati (OH), Louisville (KY), Indianapolis (IN), Pittsburgh (PA), Asheville (NC), Durham (NC), Charlotte (NC), Baton Rouge (LA), Houston (TX), Austin (TX), Dallas (TX), Norman (OK), Albuquerque (NM), Phoenix (AZ), and San Diego (CA). Tickets for these shows are on sale now and links are here. There will be additional live dates soon.
Apr. 24 - Salt Lake City, UT - Metro Music Hall [NEW DATE] Apr. 26 - Denver, CO - Bluebird [NEW DATE] Apr. 28 - St Louis, MO - Old Rock House Apr. 29 - Cincinnati, OH - Urban Artifact Brewery May 01 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar May 02 - Indianapolis, IN - HiFi May 03 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Café May 05 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle May 06 - Durham, NC - Motorco May 07 - Charlotte, NC - Amos Southend May 09 - Baton Rouge, LA - Mid City Ballroom [NEW VENUE] May 10 - Houston, TX - Continental Club May 12 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk May 13 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada May 15 - Norman, OK - Opolis May 16 - Albuquerque, NM - Sister Bar May 17 - Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom May 21 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah May 22 - Los Angeles, CA - Roxy
“Cloud Nein,” the first offering from Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, is earning praise for its ebullient, melancholic pop. Consequence of Sound says the track “is the perfect Man Man comeback song. It’s got everything we’ve been missing in the band’s absence: simple horn slides, parade-like percussion, fantastical vocal harmonies, and an undeniably catchy chorus. It also marks the return of frontman Honus Honus’ life lessons veiled under theatrical delivery.” Brooklyn Vegan called the lyric video “joyous” and noted the track for its “70s style pop.” And Rolling Stone offered this, “despite the characteristic negativity of the song, the music belies its darker side, finding Kattner wailing on the chipper-sounding chorus.”
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between is now available for preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last). After street date a limited supply of the Loser edition LP will be available at select independent retailers in North America and at Man Man’s live shows. Meanwhile, in the U.K. and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Sub Pop has signed Man Man to a worldwide deal and will release Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between on CD/2xLP/CS/DL worldwide on May 1st, 2020. You can now watch the new lyric video for “Cloud Nein,” the album’s ebullient first offering, which is available now at all DSPs. Honus Honus, who directed the visual, says of the track, “Life is short. Dance, be merry.”
The 17-track effort also features “Future Peg,” “On the Mend” “Sheela,” and “Animal Attraction,” was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S. Husky Höskulds (Tom Waits, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen Toussaint), and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping). Dream Hunting…also includes guest vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski on “Future Peg” and “If Only,” and Rebecca Black (singer of the viral pop hit, “Friday”) on “On The Mend” and “Lonely Beuys.” The album follows the release of “Beached” and “Witch,“ Man Man’s contributions to Vol. 4 of the Sub Pop Singles Club in 2019.
Man Man will tour extensively in 2020 in support of Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. Live dates will be announced soon.
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between is now available for preorder from Sub Pop.
Man Man Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between
Tracklisting: 1. Dreamers 2. Cloud Nein 3. On the Mend 4. Lonely Beuys 5. Future Peg 6. Goat 7. Inner Iggy 8. Hunters 9. Oyster Point 10. The Prettiest Song in the World 11. Animal Attraction 12. Sheela 13. Unsweet Meat 14. Swan 15. Powder My Wig 16. If Only 17. In the Valley of the In-Between
LP purchases through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will received the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last). Meanwhile, preorders through select independent retailers in the U.K. and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
[Photo credit: Dan Monick]
About Man Man’s Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between: Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s extremes: beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The songs on Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, Man Man’s first album in over six years and his Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful, and timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring.
At the end of 2015, Man Man went on an unexpected and unforeseen hiatus, and thus began a period of creative reinvention for Honus. He worked in music supervision and on scores (The Exorcist, Superdeluxe, Do You Want to See a Dead Body?). He acted in the indie film Woe (“I played a park ranger, a nice guy in a sad movie.”), So It Goes, a short musical film with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and starred in the award-winning tour documentary Use Your Delusion. He also developed an animated series, wrote film scripts, a graphic novel, a neo-noir TV pilot, and briefly penned a music column for The Talkhouse all while continuing to work on new music, such as an unreleased kids’ record, another Mister Heavenly album, a self-released Honus Honus record, and a conceptual art/noise project Mega Naturals. He was sleeping 2.5 hours per day.
In the midst of this Man Man sabbatical, Honus began piecing together what would become Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. He recruited longtime-creative collaborator Ghahremani to help him produce. Written in a friend’s LA “guesthouse” (more shack than chic) that had “an old upright piano, a thrift store lamp, and nothing else,” it was an arduous, three-and-a-half-year process, “I had chord progression notes that looked like chicken scratch and lyrics on pieces of paper stuck all over the walls. It looked like I was about to break the big case, catch the killer,” he says, laughing. “One of the best things about this time, in these ‘lost in the wilderness/surreal exile from my own band’ years, was that I finally found players who believed in me, trusted my vision, respected my songwriting. It was rejuvenating.”
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between opens with “Dreamers,” an ethereal instrumental that soon takes a dark turn into the 20 seconds of cacophony that introduces “Cloud Nein.” An exercise in orchestral-pop storytelling tinted by wry cynicism, it features lyrics such as, “All your dreams crash and burn, and fall to the ground. When they’re made of sweet nothings ’cause nothing sticks around.” Says Honus: “I was writing a song about someone else, but also myself, in a sense. You have to keep changing, evolving in order to survive, appreciate what you have while you have it because there are no guarantees it’ll stick around forever. AKA, life.”
He would find inspiration everywhere. “If Only,” featuring feather-light vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski, came to him in a dream. “I first heard ‘If Only’ sung in an R&B Jackie Wilson kind of way,” he says of the haunting piano lullaby. The glitched-out fever dream “Oyster Point” opens with a recording of 8-year-old Honus singing to his newborn brother and named after the town where the frontman and his bandmates met someone who tried to sell them a broken bass clarinet. An ex, bitten by a goat and worried she’d contracted salmonella (true story!), inspired the off-kilter jazz narrative “Goat.” (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well!) In the opening seconds of “Goat” you can actually hear the first time Honus presented the song to his band —an iPhone recording of his drummer playfully teasing, in classic 80s movie tone, “Don’t fuck this up. This is a big gig,” before launching seamlessly into the studio version. “I was taking songs out under the guise of my solo band,” he explains, “so we could test the waters, see what worked live, what didn’t, and then I’d adjust accordingly. When it came time to finally record, we did everything at Cy’s studio but after a year or so of tracking, I didn’t like how ‘in the box’ and stiff everything felt so we booked out a short tour with the sole intention of rolling back and recutting everything together live in a larger studio space. In two frantic tracking days. It was crucial to me that this album feels like a band playing together in a room, communicating with each other, breathing, organic, slithery, alive.”
This lust for life, gloriously unhinged at times, beats strongly throughout. The “Inner Iggy,” all staccato Pinocchio Pleasure Island vibes, pays obeisance to the punk singer as a one-man tsunami. Joseph Beuys, the conceptual artist famous for cohabitating with a coyote at a gallery, stands at the center of the full-throated “Lonely Beuys.” Meanwhile, “Sheela,” a pop-fuzz update on doo-wop, is a love song to the cult attaché at the center of Wild Wild Country. “I watched that documentary, and she terrified me,” he says. “But weeks later, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I loved how strong and powerful and determined a person she was.” The devil is in the details, which is why they affected coyote howls to honor the hell-raiser.
“I started Man Man because I saw Holy Mountain when I was 22. It blew my mind. I had never been in a band or played music before, but I knew I needed to make songs that sounded like that movie felt,” he says. “When I was hunkering down to write, there was a lot of self-doubt, fighting the urge to throw in the towel. It was unavoidable but I had to dive headlong into these fears and twist them into something that wasn’t dominated by them. I’m not gonna lie, it fucking sucked, but it definitely forced the best album of my career out of me. Sometimes you have to tear it all down to build it back up the right way.”
Kattner caught the killer. He is currently sleeping 3.5 hours per day. Hope reigns.
