While a musical instrument is the perfect utensil for expression and, by extension, pissing off parents for teens looking for youthful defiance, for the Swiss electro-focused multi-instrumentalist Manuel Liebeskind, refusing to learn an instrument was his little transgressive act.

“It’s really how I started to learn an instrument, in a way, or make music,” Manuel tells Post-Burnout on getting into electronic music. “I have a background from my parents, which is more in classical music, but I never actually learnt an instrument. I kind of refused to do that, as a kid, [Laughs], although I, obviously, had a musical talent.

“I started, very young, to just drum on everything, and it seemed obvious that I had a musical talent. I got a darbuka at the age of three from a musician friend of my parents. Actually, it was a relative who, I think, was an opera singer.

“So, I was drumming all the time, but I refused to learn an instrument. So, at maybe 18, maybe 19, I’m not really sure, I started to play my mom’s piano and my dad had a reel-to-reel machine, and I used this as an echo machine. You know, it had two speeds, so you could have two delays and switch it.

“So, that’s kind of how I started, and I was asked by some friends who used to be in punk bands if I wanted to join a band, and I just started playing keyboards and learning the guitar, as well. So, that’s how it happened.”

Manuel worked with various artists, as both an instrumentalist and on the production side. In addition to performance and production, he formed the booking agency, Splatter Promotion, and brought various punk, experimental and noise acts to Europe. One of the bands Manuel would book and play with was the legendary Californian noise act Oxbow, which, at the time, was fronted by Eugene S. Robinson.

Since the ‘80s, Eugene has been a famed multimedia artist, best known as the frontman for acts like the aforementioned Oxbow, as well as the Bay Area hardcore act Whipping Boy and the American/Italian supergroup Buñuel, where his deep, guttural, intense, and often spoken-word-esque cadence made him an instantly recognisable and (in the case of Oxbow) irreplaceable vocalist.

Recently, Eugene and Manuel teamed up to start a new project, Mangene (a portmanteau of their names), which combines the former’s vocal talents and experience with the latter’s electronic background to create a very dense and intimidating trip.

When asked how writing for Mangene compares to other projects, Eugene responds, “This, for me, was heavily affected by…I got a fellowship in Marseille, and I didn’t want to…What? I’m going to go sit in France for a month and do what? And they said, ‘Well, we’ll pay for you to get there and we’ll put you up when you’re there,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, but…,’ and they said, ‘Well, John Cage did it,’ and I go, ‘OK, OK! I’ll do it!’ [Laughs]

“I folded very easily when I heard that John Cage did it. I said, ‘Well, what did John Cage do?’ ‘Well, he wrote us a symphony. A thirty-days symphony.’ I said, ‘OK, that’s a good idea. I should do something that nobody else would ever pay me to do.’ So, I wrote a play called The Inimitable Sounds of Love: A Threesome in Four Acts.

“I finished it in thirty days, delivered it, it was published in English and French, but, at the time, I had never written a play before. So, I started reading a lot of Harold Pinter, and I really like the economy of the language, and I think that this aggressively affected… – well, timing-wise, I’m not sure if it happened before, during, or after – …but, it aggressively affected what I was interested in doing lyrically, right?

“If you read The Birthday Party or The Pumpkin Eater, or any of the Harold Pinter screenplays – like The Servant, which is a big favourite of mine; the film – it’s super elliptical. It’s a lot of what’s in between the spaces. So, that’s what I tried to do, versus the pure, diary take, that’s, typically, been my speciality. I wanted to do it a bit differently.

“And it’s made Mangene, in terms of actually learning songs […], it’s made it very difficult because it doesn’t naturally flow. It’s not an organic narrative, for me. So, in that way, it’s great to do but it makes it very hard to play live, at least for me. [Laughs]”

Manuel believes that Mangene has also altered his way of crafting music. “I told you before that I kind of started with electronic instruments, but I’ve mostly been playing in these kind of post-punk bands, writing traditional songs,” he explains.

“So, I’m much [more] of a songwriter, even though you may not have heard of many of those songs. So, this was a different approach, which mostly started with beats and working around those and, slowly, developing these tracks. Of course, since I’m not a classically-educated musician, if you want, it’s also a way for me to learn about instruments, about sounds, about music at all.

“Even when I started playing guitar, I was always writing songs, and I kind of learnt to play them because I had written them, so I had to play them! And that’s kind of similar, but with a totally different approach because I didn’t intend to write songs at the beginning. I realise that, in some way, it became songs, but it’s not songs in the way you’d expect it, with a verse, a chorus, and a nice melody, and things like that. That’s not what’s happening, there.”

For a vocalist with the longevity of Eugene, the different musical scope of Mangene offered him the opportunity to explore his vocal range. “I’m only doing projects, right now, if they offer me an opportunity to do something creative and interesting with my vocals, right?” says Eugene.

“If I’m not doing anything creative and interesting with my vocals, it doesn’t make any sense for me to do it. These different projects give me an opportunity to do stuff that the other projects don’t give me an opportunity to do.”

Ten days ago, as of publication, Mangene released their debut EP, 101 Atomic Terms and What They Mean. “If you look at it as a plan, as a composition, it’s in parts,” Manuel says of the EP. “Each track has an idea behind [it], but it was layered, so we put layer on layer, if you look at it as a composition. […]

“It started kind of computerless, but then it was composed on a computer screen with a modern DAW, and it was very intentional how these layers are put together, of course. So, there’s a lot of structure behind [it] and how the rhythms evolved, and stuff like that.”

The EP’s title is something that Eugene has had in his back pocket for a very long time. He explains, “It’s one of those things, it’s a standard feature of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, that the hero meets a witch, and the witch will give you a piece of string, a hunk of cheese, and an eyepatch, and you have no idea what these things are useful for, but, you know, whatever, she said ‘Take them,’  you take them, and, in the course of the story, they end up being extremely valuable.

“For me, I’ve been holding onto that title since 1979. [Laughs] Bits and pieces of it have worked its…I published a magazine called The Birth of Tragedy…it had worked its way into The Birth of Tragedy. It comes from a larger book that’s exactly that, you know? It’s a glossary for nuclear engineers.

“I don’t know how it is that it came into my hands in 1979, but it took on a special resonance for me because, by about 1985 or ’86, I was working in the defence industry, so it justified me keeping it for six years, and, even beyond that, I kept it for, like, ten, fifteen more years before the right project came, and, as soon as I heard the music, there was no possibility of it being called anything else.

“This is precisely what the gypsy had wanted me to do. That’s why I had been given the title. And it gives me a great amount of pleasure [Laughs] to actually have used it, finally.”

At the moment, Eugene is planning a move to Spain, which may allow Mangene more live opportunities in Europe, as Manuel is currently based in Berlin. The band would like to return to Ireland, not necessarily to play music, but to make good on a promise.

After an incident from a gig at Whelan’s that Eugene was quite sparse with details, he says, “Right now there are a bunch of Irish people who want to beat me up there, so I’m looking forward to getting back to Ireland. So, the guys over at Straight Blast Gym have invited me over for an ass-kicking. I’m looking forward to it. I believe I said, ‘If you think you can solve your problems by beating me up, I’m willing to let you try.’”

Mangene’s debut EP, 101 Atomic Terms and What They Mean, is out now on all streaming services. You can also purchase a physical or digital copy through their Bandcamp.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 22:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full, where we go into further depth about everything discussed, as well as the state of music, the industry and culture today, Eugene’s media diet, their time in Ireland, music and tech, why Eugene is moving to Spain, and much more. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.