The spirit of summer

TuaTara, the debut album by Manatapu, is set to bring the right vibe to the alternative scene this season. Ramona Depares interviews the band ahead of the album launch party. It’s been a while since we heard from you guys – what has Manatapu been up to recently? We were busy writing the music; getting support from different quarters such as Malta Arts Council, ZAAR’s crowdfunding and sponsors; and also getting our launch for this new album, TuaTara, endorsed by Valletta 2018. Then, we finally got working on producing the songs that we chose for this album with Lighthouse Productions, and finally headed to SpineSplitter Studio by the end of February. We kept ourselves very busy during these last two years and we are now working on the last touches and logistics to finally have our TuaTara album launch. You have also had a change in line-up – has this affected the sound/dynamics at all? Yes, towards the beginning of 2017 ManaTapu were searching for a new bassist to replace Francesco Darmanin and, after a lot of soul-searching, around March last year Aaron joined us as our new bass player. With him he got all these new bass lines and different time signatures that he so much likes...