Seth Manchester’s 2023

Aw man, it has not been easy to keep up with Seth Manchester this year. It’s been more than five years since Seth’s otherworldly production on ‘Goodness‘ convinced me to buy every single album that Mr Manchester produced from that point onward. This has lead to around 15 further entries on this list. And a lot of death metal. Well, it stops here.

Well, kinda stops. I use Discogs to keep up with Seth, and going off that they’ve been involved in a total of forty records in 2023 (!), though that is including some rereleases and a handful of albums I can just find no other information on anywhere else. This is obviously unsustainable, especially when you consider that Manchester works on quite a few records that I do not enjoy listening to at all. But there is also some very interesting stuff that I missed out on this year that might have made the list. were I not wasting money on more instrumental noise rock.

So the Seth Manchester run will continue. I still think they’re the greatest rock producer working and they introduce me to music that I’d overwise have no chance of coming into contact with. Already on NE2023 we’ve seen the Manchester produced Lingua Ignota project, who I only know in the first place because of the Seth ties. Only, in the future I’m going to listen to an album first and then decide if it’s likely to be worth me spending money on and adding it to the Necessary Evil rotation. Yeah, I know, you probably thought I did as much already, right? Nope. I’m a fucking idiot. Anyway, I’m going to run down some of the more notable 2023 Seth credits.

BEEN SOME DARK DAYS LATELY AND I’M FINDING IT CRIPPLING

#71 BIG|BRAVE: Vital

See that punctuation mark between the ‘big’ and the ‘brave’ in this Montreal band’s name? That actually has many names, depending on what context it’s used. In computing it’s called a ‘pipe‘; in Sanskrit it’s known as a ‘danda’; and in logic it’s known as a ‘Sheffer stroke‘. The ‘Sheffer stroke’ is named after early 20th century logician Henry M. Sheffer who, in cruel irony, actually died of a stroke. Maybe. Probably not. I don’t actually know how he died. Also, I’m not sure that counts as irony, but that’s a debate for a different time. In general, that long, dripping ‘L’ is simply referred to as a ‘vertical bar‘.

Anyway, just thought I’d explain the definitions here so I could say the following sentence: See that vertical bar in BIG|BRAVE‘s name? That’s pretty cool, innit? Don’t know if I’ve seen a band use that before.

GLAD TO GET THAT OUT THE WAY