Dan Mangan

Dan Mangan dangles a tempting morsel in front of his slavering fans with Roboteering, a five-song EP containing three of the tracks from his upcoming album, Nice, Very Nice, due to be released in the summer of 2009. More upbeat than his 2005 debut (the gently pretty Postcards and Daydreaming), these five tracks reveal an unexpected side to the Vancouver-based singer-songwriter. From the wonderfully ridiculous choral arrangements on opening track "Robots," with its horns, handclaps and absurd lyrics, to his sweetly simple and oddly phrased piano and guitar duet with Veda Hille, "The Indie Queens are Waiting," the new songs demonstrate a theatrical sensibility that wasn't previously apparent, proving that Mangan's abilities extend beyond the writing of lovely acoustic folk. Mangan's warm, gravelly voice, which sailed across oceans of sorrow on Postcards, here reveals a self-effacing humour that keeps the young songwriter firmly on the right side of maudlin this time around. It's all great, just great. Hurry up with the rest of it, dude.