Shaki Tavi

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Minor Slip is the Felte debut from Shaki Tavi, the main project of Oklahoma-born, LA-based DIY lifer Leon Manson and a cadre of friends and commiserators. Through layered squalls of fuzzed-out guitars and overdriven drums, deceptively beautiful pop hooks emerge, illuminated by Manson’s weathered, harmonized baritone and knack for inventive structures. Tracing the record’s origins to a phase of burnout and disillusionment, he recalls, “I started just sitting down with some minimal effects and gear, playing riffs, and asking myself, ‘What if it could be fun?

What if it could be for me?’” The result is powerful, vulnerable, catchy, and uncommonly genuine, an eruption of creative force from the child of rock musicians, whose passion and drive emerged as a small town outsider, and strengthened amid the artifice and fend-for-yourself reality of LA.

Lead single, “Breaker”, combines a mid tempo breakbeat with prismatic guitars and laid back vocals, in a cross-pollination of genres that distills Manson’s years in different bands and scenes into a sincere, uncompromising vision. On “Foam”, skull-rattling riffs and a howling guitar hook soar over Big Beat drums, equally evoking arena-sized grandeur and jangly sway. The fullness and ambition in Manson’s arrangements developed over the course of a few years of writing, revising, and recording. He recalls, “After some surprising feedback to a couple of bedroom demos, I got my bandmates into the studio to make more polished versions; this second phase involved a familiar kind of existential drift and doubt, but the solution was the same as always: keep it simple, make stuff I like, and go from there.”

Despite his singular vision, Manson’s dedication to community runs deep; he has worked at LA’s creative non-profit Non Plus Ultra for years, and while acknowledging the massive scale of the West Coast arts scene, he notes, “The upside of this city is that the creative energy is off the charts if you are able to open your sails and harness it.” Manson further summarizes the emotional investment in his work, noting, “This record sometimes felt like a burden, other times like a life raft; it was a process of welcoming whatever is happening, even when there are minor slips.”