Tonight: The Manichean’s Lacerus Rising, at the Avant Garden (& Reviewed/MP3!)

In case you haven’t already heard, Houston’s own quirky, arty, ultra-dramatic (and I mean that in a good way, don’t worry) indie-rockers {The Manichean} are having an EP release party tonight, Thurs., December 23rd, up at the Avant Garden, and yes, it promises to be pretty amazing.

Granted, I was initially a little bummed to learn that this isn’t for Lovers, the band’s coming-in-2011 full-length followup to their debut EP, Whispers, but after hearing their new remix EP, Lacerus Rising, I’m feeling a whole lot better about it…

According to songwriter & co-bandleader (along with Cory Sinclair) Justice Tirapelli-Jamail, the idea’s been bubbling around in his head for a couple of years now, long before Whispers was released — he’d wanted to do some kind of remix release, but things got hectic on other fronts, and the plan got shelved.

Along came friend & remixer Vincent Priceless, then, to resurrect the EP; he did a couple of remixes, and then Tirapelli-Jamail started asking around and discovered that a bunch of the band’s friends were into the whole remixing thing, including Will Schorre, a guy he’d known since childhood. The band gave the Whispers track “Lacerus” to do with as they wished, and the remixers went to town on it.

The results are pretty great, and I say that as somebody who’s not generally all that keen on this sort of thing. Rather than sounding like slightly-tweaked versions of the song, each track sounds like a whole damn different song in itself, building a brand-new framework and feel based on a piece or two from the original. Check out the full review I wrote up of the EP on over here.

It’s a digital-only release, btw — echoing what quite a few other local music-makers have said to me recently (including Marshall from {Bright Men of Learning} & Ramon from the {Linus Pauling Quartet}), Tirapelli-Jamail said there didn’t really seem to be much point in printing up a bunch of CDs when people could just download it all. You can purchase Lacerus Rising, then from the band’s BandCamp site for a measly $5.

It won’t just be The Manichean playing tonight, either, but all of the remixers involved, namely {Will Schorre}, {Webby Appleton}, {mirm}, & Vincent Priceless, who’ll all be doing their own solo stuff. If they’re as good as their remixes, it should be quite a show…

And hey, if you feel like taking a listen to one of the tracks on the actual EP, you’re in luck:

The Manichean Vs. Vincent Priceless – “Lacerus Rising”

Get on up to the ‘trose this evening…