Manilla

London, United Kingdom

Billboard

London based Manilla are Simon Goodwin and Phil Heard. Phil and Simon were both already in bands when they met through a friend 'in the trade' during the early 90's. They discovered they shared a love of deep electronic music combined with mutual enthusiasms for pure melody and impure space-age-batchelor-pad kitsch. The boys subsequently teamed up to form Manilla in the late 90's. In addition to their shared music background Phil brought a love of dub and hip-hop and Simon a love of krautrock and electro-pop to the heady Manilla mix. Initially Manilla pursued a jazzy d'n'b / breakbeat sound. The bands first demo resulted in them signing to Belgium's seminal R&S label and a subsequent 12" release. The mothballing of R&S led to Manilla retreating to the studio to concentrate on developing their unique sound. In 2005 the boys were signed by Lo Recordings and the first of their releases with them, the 4 Piece EP, appeared in Spring of 2006. The intervening period had seen the band commissioned to produce music for international TV and film as well as undertaking a number of remixes. Manilla have played gigs at numerous live venues around London including The Luminaire, 93 Feet East and Ginglik as well as playing the Latitude Festival in 2006. The boys can occasionally be found dropping Manilla DJ sets in venues as diverse as the Big Chill Bar and The Photographers Gallery. Simon regularly DJs solo with the Nvelope DJ collective.

Some comments on the 4 Piece EP:
"I've no idea who they are either but I'm thinking they deserve a lottery grant for this" Steve Lamacq, BBC Radio1
"Brilliant stuff!" Huw Stephens, BBC Radio1
"I love it!" Keith Downey, Spin Radio Dublin
"Very nice all the 4 tracks, wicked, funny music, good for listening and good for spinning. I will be playing on heavy rotation." DJ Suefo, Tilos Rádió Budapest
"It's fabulous!" DJ Kone-R, Uncharted Audio
"Extremely enjoyable indeed; tremendous fun, utterly lovable" Smallfish
"Makes me want to drink loads of rum, smoke huge fat brown cigars and do a man dance to try and woo some Latin lovelies before I fall over and look like the dick of a man I am" Ant, Norman Records