Listen to Modern Romance

BBC-4 Radio called a recent live session "marvelous... absolutely beautiful... one of our favorite sessions of the year”, the magazine El Pais declared a Spanish performance "monstrously sad and brilliantly anachronistic…”, & Rolling Stone France calls his most recent release “perfect, just perfect”. For ten years Mangham Parker has sung on stages across the US and Europe, in small groups (most notably Parker & Lily), large ensembles (including the 14-man strong The Low Lows), and solo. He has released six full-length albums and three EPs on labels as diverse as Misra, WARM, Manifesto, PCP, Monotreme (England), Houston Party (Spain), & Crippled Hot Wax (Germany); and played festivals from a Flaming-Lips curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in New York to Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. Currently settled in Austin Texas, Mangham Parker is slated to release his first full-length solo album “Gaudy Frame" (recorded by Danny Reisch of Shearwater) in late 2014, & tours with a six-piece band (featuring members of Okkervil River & the Polyphonic Spree) in which a slew of vintage organs and pianos round out a dense, funereal live sound evocative of early My Morning Jacket or Phosphorescent. The intricately orchestrated brass section evokes both stax/volt-style balladry and Neutral Milk cacophony. Stately, dreamlike waltzes a la Richard Hawley or M. Ward build to explosive, gospel-tinged climaxes, & a woozy country narcosis kin to Skygreen Leopards or The Low Anthem alternates with Velvets-style feedback drones & buried noise melodies.