New Music: Manuok Takes Me To Strange Places in Traffic Jam

I've got this friend named Chris.  Chris lives in the warehouse district of SF on Napolean Street with a horde of artists and musicians.  Their space is pretty sweet and even has a performance space complete with drums, guitars, bass, mics and PA.  Saturday night a couple of bands played at one of Chris' parties.  One of these bands was Manuok.

I wasn't even at the show, but still I'm writing this here thingy.  Sunday afternoon, I popped in to hang with Chris, and he played me a few tracks off Manuok's self titled album.  Muy sabroso.  I liked it so much that I demanded to borrow it for my drive back to Berkeley.

45 minutes later, I'm stuck in grid-lock traffic on the 101 North.  I'm about 4 songs into the album, and I'm realizing what a rare moment this is.  How often is it that a friend gives you a CD of a band you've never heard, and you - as someone fairly picky about the music you listen to - end up liking every song so far.  And not just vaguely liking, as in the songs are "sorta good."  But you like specific things about each song. 

It was way hotter than weather.com had predicted, and to keep my car from overheating while idling on the highway, I was sitting there baking in the sun, sans A/C, dehydrated and a little delirious.  But I heard elements of Elliott Smith.  I heard, believe it or not, little hints of Alice in Chains.  I heard a creepier, Halloweeny Dios.  And I heard the poignant and catchy use of echo piano, popularized lately by Coldplay. 

The rest of the album was good.  Not as surprisingly good as at the outset because after the first 5 or 6 songs, I pretty much got the picture.  From song 7 or so on, it was all in the same general vein, but I was still enjoying that vein immensely.

Cursory research on the world wide web reveals the following about Manuok:

Manuok is mainly San Diegan Scott Mercado.  Its one of those alter-ego, side project things.  He's also in a band called Via Satellite, which has some members currently touring with The Album Leaf.  Both Manuok and Via Satellite are signed to San Diego label Loud & Clear Records. 

Check out Manuok's site for some MP3s and vids.  There's also links to a couple of other "projects" - Mr. Tube and Pinback.  The former is a quaint little website hoax, me thinks.  The latter I don't know about.  Does anyone know what the relationship is between Mercado and Pinback?